A new story about him, Dracula, and how could I miss it? His world always fascinated me, so it was inevitable to yield to this seductive nocturnal creature.

Plot

Poster Dracula (2020) © by IMDB

The challenges of a cunning nun seem to lead Dracula against intriguing dangers, but soon he wakes up in a foreign country. While he returns to the old habits, he finds an attractive bride, a worthy opponent and the challenge most danger of all.

Preview

Dracula: a name, a legend. One of the most interesting monsters of horror narrative, the Evil in the most frightening form, blood’s nightmare. Lots of questions were made on Dracula, and lots of writers used his figure to create new stories.

Dracula is alive, always between us; he breaths in the books’ pages written for him, he hides in the folds of the movies created on him. He resides in lots of dreams and nightmares, and he grew with the legends that survived the centuries.

Claes Bang in Dracula (2020) © by IMDB

“Blood is lives“ is the Dracula’s sentence most used in this new telefilm, created by Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat, because it’s in the blood that the stories of all of us flow, and with the blood myths and legends survive.

Review

I remained surprised and at the same time a little bit unsatisfied with this TV series. I thought to find the classic Dracula’s story, Bram Stoker’s story, without arrangements, instead, the creators shuffled the card on the table.

A very unique character is Agatha Van Helsing, played by the actress Dolly Wells. She is an unconventional nun that I appreciated for her cunning and courage. She wants to know the greatest fears of Dracula and discovers why he is afraid of the cross and the sun. Agatha is not afraid of the monster and tries to analyze him in a clinic and psychological way, so she shows a scientific temperament that will be the principal characteristic of her descendant, Zoe Van Helsing. Dracula seems to find a valid opponent in this nun.

The characters of Jonathan Harker and Mina Murray are not very important, they appear only in a few scenes, especially Mina.

And the character of Dracula?  Maybe the choice of Claes Bang for this role was a little bit risky; his performance was very good, but I’d prefer a more shady look, less gentleman, and actions more spectacular. This character, that should have been the star of the telefilm, has gone into the background, exceeded by the character of the nun.

I think the second episode is very addictive, with this sort of chess match between Dracula and Agatha. In my opinion, the most significant episode of the TV show.

Claes Bang in Dracula (2020) © by IMDB

In the third episode, new figures we meet new figures: the young Dr Seward, the beautiful Lucy Westenra, and Zoe Van Helsing, who discovers the biggest fear of Count Dracula.

I didn’t like this last episode, it didn’t have enough depth. Some things had no sense. And I also dislike the length of the episodes, but I understood why they’re so long; it wouldn’t have been the same if they’d been cut in the middle. Final opinion: good the psychology and the story behind the characters, not so stimulating the evolution of the third episode.

Conclusion of the season

Zoe, who was already suffering from cancer, goes to her death dreaming on the waves of Dracula’s inhibitory bites, who chooses to die because the girl’s sick blood is fatal for him.

You can not understand if there will be a second season, or if it will remain a miniseries.

Personally, I didn’t like the ending very much, and I would be curious to watch a possible second season, to see if the Count is really dead.

Dracula appears more human when it turns out that his greatest fear is death. That death he gives so easily to his victims, but that seems reluctant to take his long life. He craves it, wants it, and yet he has never been able to hug it. I wonder if Zoe really led him into the light… Or even the sick blood of a dying woman could not kill him?