Dracula – 1979 | 109 mins | Horror | Colour

Plot Synopsis

In the hiatus between Hammer’s series of films and Coppola’s 1992 movie comes this stylish and engrossing star-laden telling of Bram Stoker’s classic novel. Based on a successful Broadway interpretation of the novel, in which Langella starred, John Badham’s film version updates the Victorian novel to a Twenties and neglects to include many of Stoker’s scary thrills; instead portraying the Count as a seducer as much as one of the undead.

The cast includes Frank Langella offering a suave and more sympathetic portrayal of Dracula, Laurence Olivier delivering a hammy performance as his nemesis Van Helsing; a man of learning discovering the truth of the Count’s true existence rather than an expert in all things vampiric, televisions Trevor Eve as the sheepish Jonathan Harker and Donald Pleasence‘s familiar wild-eyed doctor.

When a schooner is wrecked off Whitby, the crew are discovered to have their throats cut and the only survivor is Count Dracula (Frank Langella) who has arrived with large amounts of Transylvanian soil to take up residence in Carfax Abbey. He makes friends with Dr Seward (Donald Pleasence) who runs the local asylum and with his daughter Lucy, her friend Mina, and with Jonathan Harker, Lucy’s solicitor fiancé. But almost immediately, Mina dies from loss of blood, and just possibly this may not be a coincidence.