Interesting article
A fairly long time ago, I discovered this article and thought I should share the link:
http://web.fastermac.net/~jromany67/mythawk_sites/scholar_related/vampire_paper1.html
I found it interesting. I‘d been aware of the connection between vampire myths of any kind and Christianity - the blood drinking or blood sharing being a kind of parallel with Communion - but I‘ve never come across it being put so well, and so clearly.
One thing that jarred me some was the Dracula-Christ parallel (or perhaps, Dracula‘s likening to the Anti-Christ). I didn‘t notice it when watching the movie for the first time, because the love/redemption aspect was more important to me, but I couldn‘t help seeing it after this article. The „Where is my God? He has forsaken me. It is finished“ is an undisguised allusion to Christ, and it made me a little uneasy. I wonder what does everyone think of this? To my mind, it was somehow....too much, I guess, and uncalled for. It would‘ve been enough to leave Dracula as a very human figure who suffered his personal „fall from grace“ - the vampirism being simply a metaphor for the isolation from God and from just about everything else which one may get when grieving and angry with the world (it‘s something that can happen to everyone, really, and it‘s not unredeemable, which is where the redemption through love / loved one helping kill „the beast inside“ theme comes right in) - without having to turn him into an (Anti-)Christ prototype. Maybe it‘s just me, though. :)