01/01/20:
Tonight it the first episode of the new drama series written by Mark Gatisse and Stephen Moffat called: DRACULA.
Hungary looks like a nice place, Jonathan looked worse for wear as usual with a few bruises, burns and cuts.
And just like in the book the Transylvania locals are very superstitious when the sun goes down. Thankfully Dracula did send a carriage to take Jonathan Barker the rest of the way to his castle but insisted that he should stay for a month. When Dracula meets and greets his guests he always look old unless he drinks the blood of a young man or woman he grows young and strong. "The blood is life" is what they say in Bram Stoker's book. "Help us?" Who needs help from Jonathan? I don't remember that in the book. Must of happened when Jonathan wasn't writing in his diary. And like I've said before Dracula is starting to grow younger and younger. Good thing I've already explained why. It became one investigation after another that is until Jonathan discovered wooden crates of the un-dead, even one of them looked very exorcist as it turned it's head to look at Jonathan. Once he discovered Dracula's resting place they done a classic Hammer Horror Christopher Lee shot.
Dracula looks young and fresh. Just heard a baby crying. Well that's very typical/predictable of Dracula giving the baby to the brides of his to feast on because that's what happened in the book as well as telling Jonathan to write his letters to his family, work and his fiance Mina. Choices were for Jonathan were be a prisoner or kill Dracula.
Dracula has a nice castle surrounded by beautiful Carpathian mountains. Enough scenery 'cause here comes a bride of Dracula. Dracula normally has three brides. One dark, one red and one blonde. In the book the blonde always gets the first bite.
I know from the book that once Dracula sees the picture of Mins Murray he'll be after her and turn her. I wouldn't mind if that happened to me I mean who doesn't want to live forever? Just like in the vampire diaries the process of becoming a vampire is not as simple as it seems: first a vampire must drink from someone,the victim must drink the vampires blood, the victim dies, the victim comes back to life and the victim must drink on another person to complete the transition to become a vampire. Thankfully even though Jonathan is nearly a vampire but he was saved and even though he didn't want Mina to hear his story but she was with him disguised as a nun when another nun was questioning Jonathan about his encounter with the vampire.
Jonathan has now the taste for blood but he could never harm Mina, so he staked himself But is still alive. But at least the nuns were fully prepared to stake Dracula through his heart. Good thing I know my vampire facts:
A vampire can't enter someone's house unless they're invited.
To some belief vampires can roam about by day as their powers are weak.
Vampires can shape shift into a wolf or a bat.
Vampires can hypnotize and manipulate minds.
Vampires retreat to their resting place at daylight (they hate sunlight).
Vampires hate religious things: the holy cross, holy water, sacramental waters and silver.
Vampires can't cross running waters.
Vampires sleep in coffins.
Vampires are repelled by garlic.
And the reason why they never walk in sunlight is that if they do they'll burn to ashes.
Vampires can turn into mist, control the weather and the animals.
Vampires don't have a reflection
Bullets can't kill a vampire
Vampires can't drink polluted, poisoned or tainted blood.
Enough of the head nun talking Dracula finally shuts her up in a gruesome way that I won't mention. So let's just say if she doesn't stop talking I'll lose my head.
The first episode was gritty, gruesome, bloody and enjoyable to despite my mum and dad's reaction. Claes Bang was a very good Dracula.
02/01/20:
Another episode of Dracula. Dracula playing chess with Agatha Van Helsing the nun? Not very like him but at least he's heading to England. Well Thing from the Addams Family made a cameo appearance LOL. Whilst things on the Dmitri ship are becoming stranger and stranger to them. A mother was made to stake her son through his heart as it is a vampiric superstition then. Dracula has decided to mingle with the other passengers of the Dmitri but I can tell he's hungry. One of the passengers recognised Dracula from when she was eighteen. A crewman and a passenger mysteriously disappeared. Dracula wore nice sunglasses in this episode but it's beginning to look like a murder mystery. Can someone get Poirot on the case please? For cabin No. 9 everyone keeps getting suspicious about that cabin. What's so special about that cabin anyway? The death toll on the ship keeps rising and rising but no one knows that Dracula was feeding on the passengers. A doctor who is also a passenger sailing with his daughter. who is deaf and she saw Dracula feeding on a fellow passenger. The captain decided to finally search cabin No. 9 and decided that it was all clear, just another passenger who is also on the ship appears to be sick. Dracula is getting tempted to drink blood. But Dracula doesn't find it easy to resist temptation.
The nun that Dracula has been talking about his journey turns out to be in cabin No. 9 and in order to cover his crimes he accused her for the murders and she revealed that Dracula is the vampire and so he tried to hang her. Death toll on the ship had risen to seven. All the remaining passenger and crew could do is stay in the sacred circle to keep themselves safe from Dracula as they used pages from the bible which seemed to work. Agatha set fire to the ship but Dracula always survives. Looks like the Dmitri was heading for Whitby. Agatha set the ship alight to kill Dracula but the ship kept sailing till it sank. Dracula survived and made it to England.
So now he's in 21st century England.
03/01/20:
Well we can count on the vampire to end this mini series.
With a quick flashback to 1897 when he fed on Agatha Van Helsing and now he's in 2020, 123 years later.
Zoe, the descendant of Agatha Van Helsing finds Dracula and tried to capture him but failed. Carfax ABBEY (Whitby Abbey) was in the background of Whitby and I know how glorious the place is as I saw it.
I took this photo back in October 2017 during half-term.
Dracula seems to know about modern technology. He seems to know how to handle a smart phone very well and decided to take a bite from Zoe which didn't go well as vampires can't digest tainted, polluted or poisoned blood. Doppelgangers alert as it looks like there's another Jonathan Harker but it turns out there wasn't another Jonathan Harker. We finally meet Lucy Westernra and Quincy Morris, now all we need is Seward and Holmwood to join the club. Three men after the same woman just like in the book. But in the book their can only be one winner for Lucy's hand. So they did film at Whitby Abbey. So it turns out that Dracula spent 123 years in a coma. Typical of Mark Gatiss taking the role of Renfield. Didn't he go mad and became Dr. Sewards mental patient in the book? Cut to three months later and it's Lucy's hen night and she and Dracula seemed to be texting each other. You can guess about Lucy's odd behaviour. In the book Lucy is set to marry Arthur Holmwood but in this version she is set to marry Quincy Morris. As usually Dracula takes a bite from Lucy, Renfield is still eating bugs and insects like he did in the book. Lucy has grown weaker and weaker and needs a blood transfusion before Dracula...oh dear spoke too soon.
But at least her funeral was elaborate with Robbie Williams "Angels" playing in the background.
I'm giving a bit of praise for the cremation but I am not going to tell you the process of cremation out of respect to those who lost a friend or loved one. I am one of those people because all of my grandparents were cremated.
Lucy managed to survive but in bad shape and just like in the book she'll soon be staked through the heart and finally be at peace. Zoe dies a natural death after battling cancer and Dracula dies too by drinking Zoe's blood. The death of Zoe and Dracula was done beautifully well, full of emotion.
I'm going to give a huge praise to Claes Bang who played to titular character role magnificently well. Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee would be proud of him.