Dracula The udead sucks
Okay, the gloves are off. (Literally, I just took my gloves off that I was wearing because it's cold where I am as I write this). This book is a pure insult to a masterpiece. It's as if Dacre Stoker is waging war against his own ancestor. I present to you my review of Dracla The Undead.
Imagine, if you will, that the original Dracula was all wrong. Dracula was actually a good guy out to fight his evil vampire cousin-by-marriage, Elizabeth Bathory, who apparently went evil because no one could accept she was a Lesbian. Oh, yes, she's also Jack the Ripper. Meanwhile Mina Harker's son (named Quincy Harker) wants to kill Dracula, unaware that Dracula is actually his father, and secretly the good guy. Quincy is obsessed with a Romanian actor (whose supposed backstory is suspiciously like the true life of Bela Lugosi) who has been playing Dracula in a stage version of Stoker's novel. So, yes. This sequel breaks the fourth wall of setting Dracula in our reality where we know Bram Stoker's novel exists. For those unfamiliar with the term when you 'break the fourth wall' it's when you have fictional characters aware that they are a work of fiction. It is an old acting term for when an actor pauses in a play to address the audience.
The actor that Quincy is obsessed with turns out to be Dracula in disguise! Dracula had been playing himself. And... (Dramatic pause) he's secretly Quincy's father! That's right. Mina, who is eternally young as a Dhampyr (half vampire, had a son by her secret lover, Dracula. Who did not see that coming?!
And it all ends with young Quincy boarding a ship not aware that two crates are on board (carrying what might be Mina and Dracula, who were believed to be dead a scene earlier). Oh, yes, and the ship is the Titanic
A scene from Invader Zim comes to mind as I think on this novel...
Zim: Is it supposed to be stupid?
All-mighty tallest: It's not stupid! It's advanced!
Oh, and this mess is getting a movie in 2012.
Dacre even makes Bram Stoker a character in the novel itself. Who turns their own great uncle into a fictional character?! He has Abraham Van Helsing give his notes to Stoker as a way to warn people about vampires. I guess no one told Dacre that Stoker based Van Helsing on himself, it was an early Mary Sue.
Dacre claims that this novel is based on Bram Stoker's own notes but I think the only notes were that Mina may or may not be with child and the child could be Dracula's. I remember reading something about that long before this mess ever was written.
The vampires in this burn in the sun, completely ignoring Dacre's great grand uncle having several scenes of Dracula in the day light. In this novel Mina also refers to Dracula over and over again as her prince, ignoring that in the novel he was called Count, not Prince. In fact, I think the only time Count Dracula is also called Prince is in the 1992 movie, but even then he was still also called Count.
It's true the historical figure was a prince but this is NOT the historical figure. This is a fictional character loosely inspired by the historical figure. Dracula is not Wladislaus Dragwlya (AKA Vlad the Impaler). That's just where Bram Stoker get the character's name and loosely, the location of his castle. The first time the fictional Dracula is even associated with Vlad the Imapaler is in Dan Curtis' Bram Stoker's Dracula and then later the 1992 movie with Gary Oldman.
It's actually intellectually insulting that Dacre Stoker and Ian Holt boasted (in an interview with Fangoria Magazine) that they were going to be more true to the historical Dracula than Bram Stoker was. Bram Stoker was NOT trying to be true to the historical Dracula. He was trying to create an iconic monster using the loose English translation of an historical figure's name.
It's the fact that Dacre and Ian market this as 'the only OFFICIAL' sequel that bothers me. Hammer Horror's Dracula has Risen from The Grave is better than this. (I love Hammer Horror, by the way).
This novel is an insult to the original work. By page 2 it retcons most of what Stoker has written. Dracula is now Prince instead of count, and we're told that they disintegrate in the sun! Did Dacre even read his great, grand uncle's novel?! By the way, does no one else find it funny that the official trailer for this novel (which can be found on amazon)call Dacre a 'direct descendant' while the camera is making a ziz zag down his family tree? Does no one else find this funny? A direct descendant means you are Stoker's son or daughter or grand son or daughter not great grand nephew once removed! You might as well be Lord Helmet in Spaceballs. 'I am your father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate.' I imagine if Bram Stoker's ghost was conjured you would get a running gag like out of the TV show of The Ghost and Mrs. Muir where the ghost repeatedly insists he's not related to a rather wimpy, devious, and selfish descendant.
By the way, I've noticed a certain person (I won't say who, but you can guess) has been updating the Dracula Wiki pages these last few years to claim that this 'well researched' novel was to 'give the Stoker family back creative control' over Dracula. This is a LIE! Once a book is public domain it remains public domain even if a great, great grand nephew decides to write a half-hearted sequel. Don't let Dacre fool you or scare you. Dracula is STILL public domain. And I wish someone would HONESTLY correct the Wiki pages to clarify this rather than allowing the misleading statements remain. Dacre has not 'won the rights back' for his family in writing this drivel. This novel was made out of pure and selfish greed.
Go read the original Dracula. That's the novel that deserves your attention. Not this one.