Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) with Crystal

On the Bechdelcast, the questions asked if movies have women and them all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands, or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy. Zeph and Beast start changing with the Bechdel Cast.

Hello, Jamie, it just me nine tih Dracula. Bello, Caitlin, It's hello.

The Minions worked for Dracula. Oh don't you remember from the opening of Mini, I do remember the Minion has worked for real people and fake people.

Yes, wow, incredible anyway today.

Because I didn't, I didn't. I politely refused to do the voice. I wish there was a way to I love like thee the like laugh lines that Anthony Hopkins gets where He's like, I know you're hurting right now, but we have to cut your wife's head off right now. It's an emergency. You're like Jesus, Welcome to the back soil Ast. My name is Jamie Loftis.

My name is Caitlin Deronte, also known as If listeners listen to the Daily Zeitgeist, you might know me as my anagram alias nine tit Dracula.

Truly the best. There's a lot of good ones, but that is the best.

It's a really good well, I prefer Lauren d Titanic.

Oh yeah, that's that is pretty good. That sounds like like a Carmen san Diego style ioas. But for the sake of today, nine tit Dracula will do.

Yes, indeed, because we are covering Bram Stoker's Dracula nineteen ninety two. This is the Bechdel Cast, our podcast where we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens, using the Bechdel test as a jumping off point. Which what's that? Should we say?

Well? Sure, why not? Because the creator of the Bechtel test is now our dearest friend friend, so for her because she needs our help. Yeah.

Yeah.

The Bechel's hast was created by Quirker to miss Alison Bechdel with her friend Liz Wallace. It's so weird to do this in person. Often called the Bechdel Wallace Test. There's a lot of versions of the test. The version we use is thus, there are two characters with names of a marginalized gender who speak to each other about something other than a man for two lines of dialogue.

Yes, yes, yes, And like you mentioned, Jamie, we are sitting in person. Very rare for us to do an in person record, but it's a special occasion because our guest is visiting from another country and you know them already. They are a drag artist known for RuPaul's Drag Race UK season one. They're the host of the podcast Camp Classics, and you remember them from our episodes on show Girls and Jawbreaker. It's Crystal.

Hi, I've crushed oceans of dives to be here.

You really did, I literally did, literally did?

Hi?

Hello, Thanks for having me.

Actually see Yeah.

Likewise, this is it is kind of intense, this in person thing.

Yes, yeah, speaking out about the eye contact, I know you're so beautiful. This is great. It is. I like that we only record in person when someone is specifically visiting from England, because we did that with Kate a couple of months ago as well.

Well.

I mean even just the three movies we've covered with you all very campy movies. So before we get into your history with the movie, tell us about the podcast.

Oh, thank you. Yeah. So I've started a podcast called camp Classics, which I guess is kind of like your podcasts, but a queer lens we're looking at. We call it a thoughtful podcast about stupid movies. So we're covering kind of queer coded and explicitly queer movies and kind of looking at them through a queer lens. This movie really qualifies as a camp classic. We've got We typically look at things from four categories to determine whether or not

Oh yeah.

And also, I just think whenever vampires are involved, you're probably in camp territory.

Almost always.

Almost we've been covered I mean, we did interview with a vampire last year, We've just recovered Twilight, and now, I mean, vampires are on the brain. Centers just came out we've all seen Sinners.

Not a particularly camp movie.

I'd say, actually, no, no idea.

It was the flop vibes are not there's no but it is horny, and that's also a prerequisite, I think for a vampire mode.

Oh yeah, it's yeah, it's sexy. It's sexy. That movie was so good.

It was so good. I really want to see I need to see it a second time.

Everything I consume right now just seems to involve vampires, which I'm not mad about.

They're back. I feel like whatever cultural cycle like that we fell out of in the late two thousands, we're back. And I think that the media is kind of better now too, which is kind of cool.

Yeah.

Yeah, I was going through because No Saratu also came out recently. I was going through the ranked Dracula slash No Saratu because Nosaracha is basically just a Dracula knockoff, and there have been Yeah, the two thousands was not a great time for Dracula. I didn't realize that Geord Butler had played Drus.

I am desperate to see Dracula two thousands.

Okay, have you seen I have it up his audition tape. He's wearing like a Chris Angel wig.

It's really wow.

It's really I love Geord Butler. He's not afraid to be really bad in the movie. I love it.

Gary Oldman isn't dead, but he is rolling in his grave.

Yes, yes, Gary Oldman could never wear this wig, and neither could try. No one should wear this wig. I love it. I love it. But yeah, it seems like the twenty twenties have been good to vampires so far.

Yeah, apparently Dracula is the most adapted piece of media ever.

Yes, making like I read something like seven hundred appearances in different adaptations, plays, movies, TV shows.

There are so many different I mean, obviously count Orlock is a Dracula ripoff. And I say obviously I had to check because I you know, so you never know who's ripping off who. Sure, but count Orlock is a Dracula rip off. But there's also there's like the Monster, the Universal Monster version, which is kind of like stripped of context Dracula and he's just a weird guy. There's this Dracula who the like book Cannon Dracula. There's Hotel Transylvania Dracula.

That's my niece's favorite of course count Oh my god, see everyone's got their Dracula countcula.

There's why did children have so many vampires? That that's alarming?

And then you've got things like Blacula and just all different manner of adaptations there were.

This is from a Vulture list, because I mean their vulture can be counted upon to have a list of this nature. And I celebrate that because I really needed it. This morning I learned about adaptations I hadn't heard of. One that I was like. One I haven't seen but I knew about was Willem Dafoe in Shadow of the Vampire.

Oh my god, love it, love that movie.

Yeah, because isn't that about the making of nos forra Tu?

Yes?

And then he was in Knows for a two.

Wow.

And then you know who else is in Knows for a Tu. Nicholas Holt, who plays Renfield in a different movie starring Nicholas Cage and Nicholas Cage is in a different movie called Vampire's Kiss.

Once the Vampire. Wait did I tell my Nicholas Holt story on the show before? I think I already did. It might have been on the Patreoon. Remember tell us, Okay, not to knark out Nicholas Holt, but my friend Cory, friend of the show, Cory lives in Long Beach. Apparently Nicholas Holt lives in Long Beach. Nicholas Holt had two movies in theaters this Christmas. They were Juror Number two and No Forratu. Nicholas Holt goes to first of all, Nicholas Holt AMC STUBBS member kind of Wild.

Love It, where he and I are in community together, and please.

Don't use this information for evil. Nicholas Holt confirmed STUBS member Corey has gotten in the Long Beach AMC. She knows all the information. Nicholas Holt goes to the Long Beach AMC on Christmas and everyone's like, is he going to see his own movie alone on Christmas? No, He's going to see Sonic three alone on Christmas. And I was like, he's great. I love him and I would be a lifelong fan.

Yeah.

I already thought that man was really sexy, but now.

He's like also painfully, like beautiful. I was like, I would do that. I would see Sonic three alone in Long Beach.

That's so powerful, especially if you knew you were going to get clocked doing it.

Like he walked past two theaters that he was the star of the movie and was like, no, it's gonna be Sonic three for me.

No one needs to see Juror number two.

I think he's wow. He's so real. He's a Stubs member just like us. He probably could afford a movie theater. Okay, sorry, I'm talking too much. The one Dracula adaptation I learned about that I want to see now it is Dracula Pages from a Virgin's Diary, which is from two thousand

Okay, well, shall we get into it with Crystal. What is your relationship with this movie.

With Francis Ford Coppola as Bramstoker's Dracula.

Yes, as Dracula in general, and of course Francis Ford Coppola of Megalopolis fame.

We can.

I mean, he's not afraid to do a silly one. We know this about him.

Yeah, he what's that tweet? He came on this movie, broke career in shambles, mad as hell. I feel like that's the story for this movie. I have to embarrassingly admit I have not seen a single other friendsis.

That's okay, I just saw The Godfather for this show.

Right, I'll get to it. I understand it's supposed to be quite good, so you know, I was surprised.

I really, I really came in not wanting to like it. But it is actually quit it's pretty good. I'm the first person to say that.

It turns out. Yeah, But this movie, I think I must have seen it as a child, and it terrified the piss out of me. I can still like before I watched this movie again recently and then again this week, I still had that image of Gary Oldman crawling that wall and just I found it so terrifying. For some reason. I watched it again earlier this year and was just obsessed with the campness of it. I had not expected it to be so silly. It really takes a lot of big swings this movie. And then I watched it

Same same, Yeah, I didn't see it. I didn't see it the whole way through until I think within the past year prior to that. And this is something we've mentioned on the podcast before, but our friend Alex's Horrorthon that he does, it's like a twenty four hour horror movie marathon that he does every year. And I saw it for that one year, probably like seven ish years ago or something like that, except that I wasn't in the room for most of it because I had to like go teach a class.

That's how our horrthon goes. I like painted my whole bathroom during Horror Fi one year, right.

So I only saw bits and pieces of it, but I was like, what is this movie? Of course I had heard of it before, and I was familiar with different things like Keanu's bad accent and all that kind of stuff, but I had never fully seen it until pretty recently, and I was like, oh my gosh, this is the best. I love it. I'm obsessed. Watched it three times to prep for this.

You've you've been like raving about this movie for the last year.

Yeah, so I'm new to it, but I love it the end, Jamie, what about you?

I thought, I, this is so embarrassing. I thought I had seen this movie. I was aware of the Kianu accent thing. I was thinking of Gary Oldman's makeup, and I confused it with Ron Perlman Beast from It's a very similar makeup the Linda Hamilton Ron Pearlman series about Beauty and the Beast, where Linda Hamilton plays I think, not Belle but Bell, who's like a lawyer who goes

I mean, that's what most of my notes are about.

Yeah, because I mean I appreciated that because I mean, she's not like a straightforward character, but she is, you know, very virtuous and very like observant active, but ultimately, you know, she has brown hair, so she's virtuous. Lucy doesn't have brown hair, so she's cooked. And that's how white woman characters work a lot of the time. Yeah, but yeah, no, I mean it's it's interesting, like how many different reads

Much, yeah, other stuff floating around and in the culture, and like, which part do you focus on?

I'm I'm really excited to talk about it. The production of this movie is also like interesting. I was showing Caitlin before you got her Crystal. There's a clip of the whole cast playing zip zaps off, which was quite triggering, and they're like seeing Anthony Hopkins, Sir Anthony Hopkins playing zip zaps off. I'm like, that's that's a bridge too far?

Was Gary Oldman there because he famously was kind of like absent during production, right, he was just in his tiller getting absolutely shit faced.

God, I'm yeah, because Winona like called him out for that years later, thankfully. But I can't tell because they're all wearing, with all due respect, that all the men are wearing the same shapeless nineties outfit. So I really can't tell if he's there or not.

Even in this movie, it's sometimes it's hard to tell who's who with these men. They're all kind of saying me, Yeah, that's what.

Happens when you have an all white cast. I'm like, who's that guy?

Yeah? And who is, with all due respect, Billy Campbell? I don't know, indeed.

Yeah, let's take a quick break and then we'll come back for the recap.

Billy Campbell is an American film and television actor. Oh yeah, so there you go.

That's who that is. Okay, here is the recap. We open on backstory about Dracula played by disgraced actor Gary Oldman, and.

It's kind of incredible, incredible in the not great way. How much this movie's production like bears that out, and how in the nineties, you could just say, like, yeah, it was a piece of shit on this movie, and that's why I'm so good at acting, and like.

Yeah, truly. So it's fourteen sixty two in Transylvania and Dracula is a human man at first, and he has a beloved his wife, Elisabetta played by Winona Ryder, who he must leave to go to war because men be going to war and impaling people. And then Elizabetha gets word that Dracula died in battle, so she takes her own life. But he didn't die. That was just like false fake news.

This happened to Romeo and Juliet too. Wait to see the body, ladies, wait to see the body.

Or just don't kill yourself because is dead.

There's so much to live for. Don't die. I'm a man, ye all do respect to your deceased loved ones.

Anyway, So Dracula comes back to his dead wife absolutely devastated and infuriated at like the church and the clergy who had like sent him to war. So he denounces God, saying that he's going to rise from his own death.

He stabs across the cross start elodes into a cloud of blood, which is awesome.

What a cool way to become a vampire.

God, I know he really like the mellow drama and this is just oh, it's so good, it's amazing.

And so he drinks the blood from the cross and that's how it becomes a little Vampire's such a drama queen. Okay. Then we cut to London eighteen ninety seven. We meet a man named Renfield played by Tom Waits of Shrek two fame.

Oh, he plays the.

Same more well he played. I guess he plays Captain hook Slash. He sings one of his songs in the bar that Shrek goes too.

That's important, yeah, in some way, which kind of makes him the most famous actor in the movie. Indeed. Yeah.

Okay, So Renfield has been institutionalized, so another man is tasked with taking over his work. This is Jonathan Harker played by Keanu Reeves doing a very good and very authentic English accent. No, no, oh, I know, poor poor guy. I read that he like the reason he sounds so stilted and that he's like doing a bad job is because he was trying so hard to make it perfect, and Coppola was just like just relax a bit buzz.

Less up, buddy, and he's like, I can't. Yeah. So he Coppola does still say very no way. I have a fun quote about him. He said this was like ten years ago. He said, like, Keanu is still a prince in my eyes.

He saw nice.

He said, he tried so hard. That was the problem. He wanted to do it perfectly, and in trying to do it perfectly, it came off as stilted. I tried to get him to just relax with it and not do it so fastidiously. So maybe I wasn't as critical of him, but that's because I like him so much to this day. He's a prince in my eyes, which because his character is not a prince. He's just saying that.

But Keanu is a prince.

Yeah. He belongs in i'd say modern movies or maybe in the future movies.

He does have a face for the future. Yeah yeah, and he and.

He does silent and brooty well, but he doesn't necessarily a.

Period piece is not for him.

Yeah, And he also said that he Coplo said he cast Keanu in that part because he was looking for like a hot guy of the moment, because the part of Jonathan kind of famously sucks, which no, I mean for Nicholas Holt that we could. But Jonathan. I think Jonathan's a really funny character because he's just like white, not going it through the most uncomfort I really liked it in The New Nose for Autu too.

We're just getting cooked.

He's just getting he's getting like or just like that first dinner where it's like this like absurd looking guy being like, okay, so you live with me now, and he's like, yeah, yes, okay, thank you for having me. I like Jonathan, he acts like I went in that situation. Okay, okay, okay, I've been kidnapped.

Anyway. So Jonathan Harker is about to go to Transylvania to close some real estate deals of Count Dracula, who has been buying property up all over London, although of course no one knows that this Dracula is a vampire. They just think he's like an eccentric rich dude. Jonathan technically is, yeah, in addition to being a vampire. So Jonathan says goodbye to his fiancee Mina played by also Winona Ryder, who is also doing a very good English accent.

She's done an English accent a fair cause heidden, what's the movie Colonial England? And oh, Crucible, but I think that had already come out at this point.

I asked, I don't know the timeline, but yeah, she's she's doing her best.

She is.

I think.

I think her performance is great. The accent is meth but I performances equally, I know.

So Jonathan sets off to Dracula's castle in Transylvania, and his journey is as spooky as hell. There's like wols and bats and a creepy carriage driver who sort of looks like the alien from the Alien movies, and there's just like all kinds of weird shit. He arrives at the castle and is greeted by Dracula.

And which looks like that scary man with a.

Yeah there's and then and also not to appearance shame Dracula, but he looks.

Like a lot of people that I think it's there's a there's a threshold we can body shame drag we can, and he killed a lot of people.

He looks like Emperor Palpatine. And then I've got thinking that, yes, he's got these like two titty lump hairstyle.

Which weirdly enough, is how he's described in the book. Oh, like, I think that a lot of what this adaptation it adds a lot of stuff, but it doesn't really take a lot of stuff out, Like the book is really weird.

He's a fan of Sailor Moon space buns.

Yes, yes, yeah, diabolical Lea.

So he's being very weird. Dracula is he's like flinging his sword around, his shadow is walking around independent of his movements, the palms of his hands are furry, you know, all kinds of weird stuff. And then also Dracula sees Jonathan's picture of Mina, who looks a lot like his beloved Elizabetta, and he's like, oh, who's that a wooga? Hey Jonathan, you better stay here for a month. But don't worry. I'm definitely not going to go and steal your girlfriend in London.

Right, And he's like, oh, but well, I have you. Can you write three letters confirming that you're totally okay that I can just sort of send out every so often. Is such a dumb ass, I love? And he's like, yeah, I'll do that, Yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, no problem.

Something might be kind of weird about this castle, but well.

I don't want to argue, Okay.

So meanwhile, back in London, Mina writes in her diary about how much she missus Jonathan, how she's going to stay with her friend Lucy while Jonathan is away. And Lucy's whole thing is that she is horny.

Horney, so horny, and so you're like, well, of course I think terrible it's gonna happen to her. But she's kind of a little polyamorous. She's being like, why can't I marry three people? I'm like, why can't you? She has this.

Beautiful polycule of several men who are fawning.

Over her, desperate to give her blood transfusions.

Yes.

One of them is a man from Texas named Quincy Morris played by Billy Campbell.

Oh, he's an American actor.

Oh that's who that is.

Okay, you might have recognized him from American acting.

Okay.

So another is a doctor named Jack Seward played by Richard E. Grant, and then the third is a lawyer named Arthur Holmewood played by Carrie of saw Fame.

Yes, his most famous role.

Yes.

And also, by the way, doctor Jack is currently treating Renfield the man who was driven mad after that recent trip to Transylvania. He's eating bugs and carrying on about his master, who is obviously Dracula. Back at the castle, Dracula continues to be super weird. He's shaving Jonathan, he's licking the blood from his cut.

Apparently this was the scene. Specifically, Gary Alban was completely steamed. Oh he's been drinking vodka all day. Yes, it's so, it's so fascinating.

Very scary guy.

Yeah, he basically plays that drunk man. Also, and have you seen slow Horses? No, I think it's him. Yeah, it's it's him, and he's just plays an alcoholic but anyway, yeah, he's I do love his performance though. He's so watchable.

He turns in a great performance. And he's also a very bad person and two things. Unfortunately, it can be true.

What has what has?

I don't know what he's done.

He was very very abusive to his wife, his ex wife, like the the police got involved. Oh I think it was like one of those let me just sorry, Okay, So yeah, he was like tremendously physically abusive to his ex wife. And this was a This this all happened after the production of this movie.

But also, I mean, like you're saying, there's so many examples during the production of this movie where when on a Rider was like I just felt super unsafe around him, and you know, has sort of like walked those comments back. But also she had like it just sounded like it was being around him was awful and like they had a family relationship, and then she loved Keanu. There's I have a quote from her as a as a palate cleanser.

And you're just sleeping in a coffin every night.

These really like methody kind of things were, but like, you know, method as a means to a use your co workers. Interestingly, they originally wanted Daniel da Lewis to play Dragula. Oh who, I haven't heard of him ever. Like hurting anyone doing method acting, it seems like there is surely there's a way to not hurt people.

Surely you say that, but like I'm trying to think of someone who's kind of unproblematically method because I don't know. I mean, the next person that jumps it to mind is Jared Letto, who, yeah, I guess he also did that ship on a.

Vampire, But isn't he Jim Carrey did it for a Man on the Moon when he was playing Andy Kaufman. There's so many examps, but there are some that are just like, I haven't heard of means story about danielday Lewis. I could be wrong, nor have I.

Yeah, it might just be that Tom.

Hardy as Matt Max where it just sounds like he just sort of was like like I don't think he didn't and he wasn't mean to be played just as like a little cold.

Yeah yeah, so method acting maybe not the best.

Approach if you're already a piece of shit. Yeah right.

Okay, So Dracula, he's you know, being weird and shaving Jonathan and Jonathan like that. He starts lurking around the castle and he goes into this horny fuck room with three lady vampires and they orgy him up pretty good until Dracula barges in and he's like, no, Jonathan is mine. And then Jonathan watches them eat a baby, and.

He's like, oh, don't you think, though, if you were a vampire, like a baby would be so delicious.

It's veal, it's human veal.

I think babies look delicious a bit. Sometimes I don't even eat human flesh.

That is like a like brain reaction to where you're like, it's so cute, I want to eat it.

Truly.

Okay.

So the next thing we know, Dracula is on his ship called the Demeter, bound for London, along with several crates filled with dirt from his castle grounds. We learn that he gets power from those anyway. On the way, Dracula is thinking about Mina he's eating the crew of the ship, et cetera. He arrives in London and he's in the form of like a wolf man and he lures Lucy to him, who, by the way, has gotten engaged to Arthur aka Carrie Is.

She picks kind of like I think, at least as they're portrayed in the movie, she kind of picks the flop I think. But although I was, I don't know, I was thinking about it. I was like, Seward, that's a lot of baggage. She takes him at night.

He also maybe shoots up Heroin at one point.

He definitely yeah, he has I think a morphine addiction.

Okay, yeah, he's very like in the book, he's portrayed as just like a guy, but they really go out of their way to be like he's he's a bit of a mess. Whatever. They're not gonna be married for lawn.

No. So she's engaged, but then she's seduced by Dracula's vampire powers and she fucks and gets bitten by this like wolfy version of Dracula, and then Mina comes in and sees all of this happening, and then Dracula does my favorite thing where someone's like, don't look at me, runs away and disappears, So drama, no, not like this. And then so Mina helps Lucy get inside, and then Dracula moves into his new house in London. He then

Yeah, yeah, the the Unfortunately, the purple glasses really scanned Johnny Depp to me, but I thought it was really funny when he like saw on a rider in the crowd and it cuts to like he kind of looks like Bono a little bit. You're like, the fuck. Yeah, this is the guy who's like he must have some magical abilities because I don't get it. I don't see it.

That I will talk a lot about, but yeah, we'll get there, Okay. So he spots Mina, who's also out and about, and he introduces himself to her as Prince Vlad, and he's eventually able to lure her in, also using his vampire powers question Mark. She seems to think that she recognizes him, and he's also about to bite her, but he can't bring himself to do it. And I'm not really sure what's going on here.

Also like watching porn, Yeah, and I was like, Mina, how do you? She really repressed I which I like, we'll talk about more of the productions. But like that was why win Ona writer wanted this movie to be made, where she was like, Mina is so interesting and no one cares like that her Like writers, the whole reason this movie exists was is true for a lot of own Writer movies. She's a great producer.

Yeah yeah, okay. So meanwhile, Lucy is not feeling quite herself, perhaps because Dracula bit her and she's turning into a vampire.

Which she does have a great smoky yeah she does so.

Abraham van Helsing played by Anthony Hopkins, a doctor who specializes obscure ailments.

It's so wild that Anthony Hopkins has been old for my entire life. It's like he's everyone go follow Anthony Hopkins on Instagram.

Oh okay, he's got a good presence.

He's got a great presence. He'll just go live and play the piano. Oh and be like hello everybody, and just start playing the piano and a ton of cats. He seems like a real sweety pie.

Good for him. Yeah, okay. So he is called upon to treat Lucy and he sees the bite marks on Lucy's neck and he's like, yep, vampire all right. But Jack, Quincy and Arthur, Lucy's three boyfriends.

I know, they're all like, I want her to give her blood. No me, no me.

But they they're like pish posh vampires. That's not real. Back at Dracula's castle, Jonathan is also having a rough go of it. He is getting all of his blood sucked out by the vampire ladies, but he manages to escape and finds refuge in a convent. When the nuns send a letter to Mina telling her to come to the convent so that she and Jonathan can get married immediately.

There's so much across European travel in this movie. They are back and forth and back and forth.

Yes, as someone who lives in.

Europe, how did this exhausting the travel itineraries of this movie?

Yeah?

Okay, So Lucy is becoming more and more vampirey. Then Van Helsing starts to do some research on Dracula specifically, and apparently his crimes are pretty well documented. It reminded me of the vampire research scene in Twilight, Oh my God, when she just googles.

She buys a book and then just googles everything and anyways, which is I was like, man, I do that all the time, Like I want to have the book, but but I'm not going to open it read it.

One of our camp clues is if someone has to google, you know, a freaky activity happening whenever someone googles what's happening to me? Or strange powers or in Lindsay Lohan's case, and I know who killed me, like twin stigmata.

Bonus points if they're on Bang exactly Jeeves.

Yeah. And so Van Helsing is basically doing the eighteen hundreds version of a Google, and he's very excited because I guess he's been pursuing Dracula his whole career and this is his chance to finally hunt him down.

I think, Yeah, he flips out, he's so excited, and then he's like he's I think Anthony Hopkins is so funny and as he's like, whoo, we gotta cut her head off, or like he's just like, can't read the room. It's very funny.

On three separate occasions, he's like, yeah, no big deal, I don't no, we don't need to give Lucy an autopsy. We just need to chop her head off and drive a stick through her heart. And then they do that on screen, and then the he says it again later you already did it, yeah, he tells. He's like, oh, yeah, Mina your your best friend. Yeah, she was in a great deal of pain and she and she's dead now, but it's okay because we chopped off her head and stabbed her in the heart, so no worries.

And she's like, it's such a tonal choice for this movie, which is otherwise so gothic, romantic, serious, erotic. And then you just got Anthony Hopkins like yeah, in a different movie.

Basically he's goofy clown. The book does like regularly mention that Van Helsing is funny. Where like that whole thing, where when was it Arth that can't Carrie elwa was Arthur?

Yes?

When he's like I'll give my blood, no big deal. I'll give every last drop. And in the book they're like, Van Helsing's so funny that he said, well, not every last drop. He so, I don't know, bran Stucker thought he was funny, didn't you go Mortensen play Van Helsing? Or who plays Hugh Jackman?

Hugh Jackman. I need to watch that movie again. I'm really.

I haven't seen it since it came out in two thousand and four.

And then sure aged great.

One thing I remember about that movie is that you could see the boom mics. Oh my god, I remember. I remember that from the cinema.

I love that. And then is Underworld a spinoff from that? Or is Kate Beckinstill playing a different Vampire Hunter.

Character she's a vampire and Underworld and she's just not a vampire Hunter and Van Helsing I think?

And then isn't I Frankenstein a spinoff of Underworld?

It's I don't know if it's a spinoff or if it's just like made by the same guy. Okay, but there's some connection, yeah, Okay, there's some connection, yes, of course. Okay, So Dracula continues to seduce Mina. It seems like there's some connection between her and Dracula's beloved Elisa Betta. Of course, they're both played by when on a writer. I think that Dracula thinks that Mina is like a reincarnation of his wife.

I think the movie thinks that. The movie probably thinks that too, Yeah, yeah, yeah, and this is all that whole thing is added, like the Elizabetha thing, and the like erotic relationship between those two is just like new yeah, yeah, yeah, lots.

To say there. Yeah, but Mina is like, oh shit, I gotta go marry my fiance, but he must never know about my new lover, Dracula aka Prince Vlad. And so she writes a letter to Dracula breaking up with him, and that feels like a very nineteenth century equivalent of like breaking up over text.

She does, and then she goes and he yeah, he has a meltdown. I'm like wow.

So Mina sets off to Romania to meet up with Jonathan. She can't stop thinking about Dracula, though I would say that he's penetrating her thoughts, and I get it they have some of psychic connection. Dracula, meanwhile, is heartbroken and crying his eyes out and looking even more like shit he's got this like bat face situation happening. His tears are blood. He is not having a good time. Mina arrives at the convent and we see her in Jonathan's wedding.

You gotta sucked too hard. That is some good head.

I can I can do that. Okay. Yeah, everyone's a really good sport about the fact that he got sucked up his great hair.

Yeah.

In that scene where Van Helsing is telling Mina that her best friend has been brutally murdered by him, he's also like in front of Mina. He says, hey, Jonathan, you know all those women that you fornicated with, You didn't drink their blood, did you? And Mina's just like what, Okay.

They just need to have a conversation about it because Mina's love with Dracula.

Come on, I have communication that This is just a story about two women with varying relationships to their own sexuality and their own notions of love, navigating polyamory. That's what this movie is about anyway. So we see the wedding and that is intercut with Dracula who is back to looking like Emperor Palpatine coming after Lucy again. He turns into a wolfy vampire again and seemingly kills Lucy. Everyone thinks she's dead. There's a whole funeral that's.

So good that those rivers of blood allen when he bites it. She basically gets fountained in blood. It's so cool. Yeah, and she's in like this gold le maay thing. Lucy always has one tit out, yes, all.

The way, lots of gratuitous she's always convalescing in like a silver gown.

One breast, just l.

Every man who comes into the room. She's like, kiss me. She makes out with so many people, it's amazing.

Also, do you know about this wedding with Keanu and Winona. So they wanted it to be authentic, so they took them to a Greek Greek Orthodox church and filmed it with a real Greek Orthodox minister. And then they realized that actually they were potentially married.

And then did they do anything about daughter?

They think They were like, it's not legal, but maybe in the eyes of God, we just got married.

Yeah, I'd be okay with it.

Yeah, that's cute.

That would have been a dream come true for Winona because she loved Keanu.

So much, she apparently still texts them and writes some letters saying dear husband, oh.

I love them.

Wow.

Okay, so we think Lucy is dead, but Van Helsing isn't so sure, so he takes Lucy's three boyfriends, Arthur, Quincy, and Jack to her grave site. Her coffin is empty, and then Lucy shows up full vampire.

With an incredible outfit the look of the movie wowow wow, and she looks like Queen Elizabeth ye, like it's incredible.

She also has a medala does vampire Yes.

Oh my gosh, it was just incredible.

And she also has a an accessory, which is a small child.

That she's about to eat tasty tasty.

But they stop Lucy and kill her by driving a steak through her heart and chopping her head off, but not before Lucy pukes blood all over Van Helsing's face.

Fun fact, for some reason, speaking of Amidala chopping the head off on screen was George Lucas's idea. I guess originally they were like gonna cut away and you're like a thud. But I guess George, because whatever those seventies guys all knew each other, and he was like, no, show the head politian vibes. He said, do it.

Apparently they kind of did twenty seven minutes of gore from this movie. WHOA, Yeah, they thought it was too gory. I love it. I'd love to see that.

I want to see what they cut. Yeah, because the all of the this movie is like worth watching if only for the practical effects. Because here's there's like a single CGI.

Effect in the entire time, and it looks terrible.

It looks bad. It looks so bad. But even the like freaky like smoke that has sex with Winona Ryder was a practical effect.

Whoa.

It was like, it's like an in camera trick.

Okay, well yeah, because Coppola was like, I don't want any CGI. I don't want any kind of modern tech. I want all like old Hollywood stuff. And he had to like fire a bunch of people who were like, no, it can't be done. And then he hired his son.

Who was a magician, to do all the practical effects.

That's good, but doesn't if you have a magician son lying around.

He's literally good for nothing else. This is.

It's his big moment. Look look, you know there's criticisms of nepotism. That's not one of them for me.

Yeah, yeah, okay. So meanwhile, Jonathan and Mina have returned to London. Jonathan sees Dracula and recognizes him. Then the married couple have dinner with Van Helsing. This is that very funny conversation where Van Helsing is just very nonchalantly being like, yeah, I murdered your best friend soul. What And then he's like, Okay, we have to form a

What a great way to get out of a party. Imagine you're just having a conversation that you don't want to be in pile of rats.

That is a good trick. That is a good thing to have in your back pocket.

I would do that on bad dates.

Yeah, oh my god, that would be so great. Yeah wow, I mean it sucks for the restaurant.

But yeah, that becomes a rat TOTUOI situation.

Oh my god, I hope that the rats are passionate about cooking. If you flooded into a bunch of remis, Oh goodness.

Okay, So Dracula goes to Mina, who is very writhing and horny, and he's like, by the way, I am a soulless, undead monster. And she's kind of upset at first, but then she's like, I don't care. I don't care that you killed my best friend. I love you always, and then he bites her. She drinks his blood so that she'll become a vampire and be able to be

Wow, Dragon, I.

Love the shots of him in his coffin in his gold le mat dress. But he's he's just like kind of stuck and he knows maybe something's going wrong. But just see his little face kind of cocooned.

He even sleeps dramatic. It's just I just love it.

So our friends take a train, hoping to beat Dracula to Romania, who is traveling by boat, so it's like a race to the castle. They bring Mina along, who it's not feeling great, what with all the turning into a vampire. She and Van Helsing separate from the others. You know, she's turning into a vampire. She kisses Van Helsing. She tries to kill him a little bit, as do the other lady vampires, the ones who reside in Dracula's castle. They've come out for a little snack, but Van Helsing

And they're like no, oh, and then they only kill sluts, you are virtuous, and then wait till you But what if she wasn't okay? So they leave her there.

Mina stays behind with Dracula, and her love fixes him or something she does ultimately fix him. She lands the final killing blow by, you know, driving the sword through his heart and chopping off his head between confessions of love, little kisses that she's giving him, tears that she's crying, so it's not necessarily like a triumphant ending. She's like, no, my other boyfriend, I have to kill him the end. So let's take another quick break and we'll come back to discuss, and we're back.

I just wanted to say I forgot to mention in my history of this movie that I watched this movie on Pluto TV. Oh, same, did you also see the same del Taco ad? Four thousand times?

No?

What commercial did you see? Four thousand times?

Oh?

I absolutely disassociate when I watch commercials, so I don't remember.

It's really hard. I will forever associate this movie with a Deltaco commercial. I was really kind of taken it back by how many times I saw it, because I mean, Pluto TV is the poor man's TV. They're both free, but to b is reasonable sure Pluto TV. It was ever, the runtime of this movie extended by forty five minutes with the number of delta and it was the same Del Taco ad every time. Oh I'm sorry it no,

In any case, should we start with maybe some adaptation changes. We've hinted at a few of them. Yeah, I have not read the book, but once again, I've read the Wikipedia synopsis of the book, so basically I know everything there is to know. Jamie. Feel free to jump in or fill in any gaps. But what I've gathered is that it's a pretty faithful adaptation as far as major story events. But there is a pretty major change in the sense that in the movie there is a love

Yeah, the whole like traveling, time travel, reincarnation story is added. And the weirdly this like it feels wild to say, but the movie is less queer than the book, which is something that I found, Like, there there is an essay, Oh my gosh, it's on my telephone. Uh, there there's an essay. I read to that and a wild desire took me. The Homoerotic History of Dracula Byalia Schaefer. That sort of traces how like Bromstoker is it Brom? Is it Bram? Is it Brom? He's dead? Bromstoker was very

I imagine one hundred and fifty years later, people are like sexless marriage.

Yeah, exactly, you can't. And like, I mean, his best friend was Oscar Wilde diedis died of syphilis. Wrote he was a big Walt Whitman fan, and he would kind of write Walt Whitman these like arguably love letters. It is very likely that he was gay, and this was maybe known in his community, but he wasn't obviously out. But he started writing Dracula a month after Oscar Wilde went to It was like, I kind of forgot about this, but Oscar Wilde was punished by the government for being gay.

Arculate, right, right, So also I saw that in the book the Lucy character is more like prim and proper and not so horny.

Yeah, I honestly do prefer Copola Lucy.

Oh.

Same.

Yeah, I have lots to say about this rendition of the character.

But she's problematic as hell. But god, I'm so glad she was.

She went out having fun, she went on top, she had three boyfriends at the time of death. That's great.

Yeah, seriously. So those are the main adaptation changes as far as I could tell, which led me to a lot of the questions I had.

Oh yeah, Oh. The only other thing is like, this is the only adaptation that I mean, there's seven hundred. It's probably not the only, but the only popular adaptation of Dracula that actually makes an effort to like put it in a place in history, because I like, all

Potentially antisemitic as well. Right, Yeah, but I've also seen that it he could represent like an anti feudalism sort of perspective as well, and like the rise of the bourgeoisie and you know, the rise of capitalism and meritocracy as it were, against this kind of archaic form of government.

That makes that makes especially in the context of like characters like if Mina and Jonathan are representing England, especially Jonathan because he's like so prim and proper that it leads to his ruin Ye and oh that's interesting.

Yeah, vampires can be anything you want. In the debate, there's such a great standards, so fun versatile.

There's a thesis paper about every aspect of Dracula.

Yeah, okay, So these adaptation changes, particularly revolving around the love story that's added in between Dracula and Mina. I did not realize that until doing research for this episode, that that was a component that is not in the book and is added in for the movie. So I was like, because as I was watching this, I was like, what is like, is there a vampire spell that he's casting on her? Like what what sort of like powers

I read it as she is the reincarnation, and as she accesses that, she's accessing a past love. But I don't think the movie does a great job of showing or telling that. And so the first time I watched it, I was like, wait, she loves them? When did that happen? Yeah?

Yeah, it does happened so quickly.

There's a few moments I got in this movie where And I never say this, but like, I kind of wish this movie told a bit more and showed a bit less Like it there's a few times where it's like, wait, what and who and how did that is? What's supposed what am I supposed to be getting from this bit? But I think that the movie thinks that there are lovers across time that are finally reunited and that's what he ignites in her, rather than it being a manipulation.

Which is also the plot of the Haunted Mansion starring anyway, with.

Another with another character named I think Elizabeth. I also weirdly, yeah, I guess my. I feel like that that layering to me felt like misguided. Like I want to believe it was well intentioned, because I think, like, if I'm putting on like nineteen ninety two brain, it's like they're expanding the character of Mina but to give her another love interest.

She's like, we've kissed, but nothing else.

I did appreciate that they made out at the altar. I was like, that's a move. That's a move. I want to do that.

But she's just an act. She's like basically pretending that her Jonathan is Dracula exactly.

Yeah.

I think that it was an attempt written and directed by men to emphasize how repressed she was.

Yeah, it's a nineties attempt to give this character a bit more. But because it's in the nineties and it's in this cocktail of like erotic thrillers. Like the way we give her more is by making her horny, right, I think there is something in interesting in that, And I think the idea is about yeah, like repression and how hardy can you be before you have to have your head cut off? Like I think that's kind of

Yeah, that was like I do. I prefer the book for that reason. Also, she has a job, she's like they mention it in the movie, but it never really comes up. But she teaches a school. Yeah, she's really smart. She she's a very active like I think she's she's kind of the protagonist of You could argue, I mean, she's certainly a more active character than any of the men trying to kill. You can argue that like her and Van Helsing are like pretty equally active and powerful

It needs to be done.

Maybe there would have been a way to explore her being repressed and horny without it needing for her to also have like true love with Dracula. Yeah, do you know what I mean? Yeah, because that obviously is a thing that existed at that time, and women, you know, weren't allowed the access to their sexuality that they are now. So that's a cool thing to kind of explore.

But I don't want to know what francis for a complos version of that is necessarily like.

But I think it's interesting because I'm trying to remember I So, I was not a huge fan of the new Nose Ferratu, in which Lily Rose DApp plays the Mena. She's called Ellen in that one for whatever, because it's the rip off, but that's the Meana character, and I feel like it for me at least, wasn't much better.

I thought it's worse and we won't spoil it. We won't spoil Nose for Atu, but people just have to do a different episode not acting, because yeah, I thought that was handled way worse.

Right, So it's like, unfortunately, I think whatever it sucks to have to use this yardstick of like random famous men, and you know, I'm a I guess I'm a fan of like Robert went to the Library Eggers. But I thought that, yeah, like it was worse than twenty twenty four, Like she is less active than she was, but also she's most active in the original text. So it's I don't know.

The bottom line is the movie I don't think makes it clear enough what is going on with her internally? Like is it that she's being, you know, mind controlled by these vampire powers? Is it that she is a reincarnation of his past lover from five hundred years before or whatever?

Right?

Is it that she's just a fragile woman, because there's like there are different moments where when she first meets Dracula, like on the streets of London, she's very firm with him. She's just like, you're trying to get around buy a map, bitch, Like, leave me alone. You're annoying and weird.

I'm engaged, uh, like I have a fiance.

And then all of a sudden she's like, oh, I'm sorry, I've been so rude. Let's hang out And then they go and watch porn together.

I just wish it was clearer that if this is what happens. I wish it was clearer that like that happens because he's Jedi mind tricking her or whatever, because I assume that's what he was doing. But it just there's no.

Visual like manifestation of that on screen.

So I'm just like what I was like, we need to have like a little she like like woooo right, because it does just kind of I don't know. Yeah, I feel like Coppola trusted to us a little bit too much in that moment because it does just sort of seem like a decision she makes versus something that's like happening.

To her, right, Like I need to see her eyes glaze over or something, you know. So that was very confusing and that made me I was just like, what is happening? And I don't like the implications of this. I guess it does make sense if she's a reincarnation, but I don't love that either, Like I would much prefer the version that we see in the original text.

I mean that's like Crystal like you're saying, like there's like there has to be a way to explore Like I because I'm all for the like stuff that's not in the book of like Nina wanting to explore her sexuality and like find a means to explore sexual passion that is just like not allowed and certainly not with her like door husband. But this just is like not the way to do it.

What do you think the movie thinks about her sexuality? Like That's the other thing I wasn't entirely clear on, Like is it is it encouraging it or is it saying that like because Lucy's punished, but like because it just ends where it does. Like I don't know, does she go back with Jonathan at the end or is she like awake now and she's like I can do better.

We don't know, we don't know, we don't know.

Yeah, kind I hope she just goes off into just like she gets three boyfriends.

You know, I would love that for her.

She's clearly not happy with that man, and the movie makes it clear that she's not. But I don't know, does the movie kind of think she needs to get back in her box hardness? I say, you know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah, because it is like emphasized in the movie that she's like her quote unquote value is her virtuousness, and it doesn't really come all the way around on that to say, like, I think that it feels like the movie still thinks that at the end. But an idea, it's confusing.

Yeah, it's a little bit ambiguous, right, because I mean, if you compare her with Lucy, it's the classic kind of Madonna horror complex thing where Mina is virtuous and she's virginal, and but she still falls in love with Dracula, and therefore she's also polyamorous because she loves Jonathan. Maybe we're led to believe she also loves Dracula. She's emotionally cheating on both of them, but she can be saved because she's the more pure, virginal one. You know, she

But it does seem like Dracula's decides she's an easy target. Like there's almost like right, there's a sense that she's disposable, and as soon as she dies, it's it's like this van helsing those jokes about cutting her head off. It's like he's not mourning her because well, she was a slut, right right, she got what she The movie kind of is is very she got what she deserved or but I agree, I.

Wish there was like a slightly different, just version of her.

Where I get stuck again, is that like all that is true, but Lucy and Mina have a great relationship the whole time, and like so it's like Lucy does feel very clearly judged in a way that like elevates. It's sort of presented in the book of like poor Lucy, that sucks, but like this is like she dies because she wanted three boyfriends. But in both like their friendship is so strong. They're not like unlike a lot of Madonna Hort stories. They're not turned against each other, they're

As pretty as Lucy and I and all these men doored me. It's not like jealousy or envious. It's just more just like good for her than everyone loves her.

It's so sweet that Lucy's like kind of encouraging her sexuality as well, like there's something very yeah, lovely about that. She's like, look at his book, isn't it fun? And she's like, you don't need to be ashamed?

Like right, yeah, but then the plot punishes her for feeling that way. It's so hard, I know.

Yeah, I love the scene where they're flipping through Arabian nights and like looking at all the horny drawings and and mean is like I could never can people even do this unless like, yeah, I did it last night. I love it.

But yeah, I like that. I like that's it. You know, it's very stretched, but I like, you know, that's a dynamic I'm familiar with of like your friend that had sex before you being like it's awesome, try it out sometimes, like hekay, I.

Wanted to talk about. So you know, there's there's different interpretations of the book as we discussed, as far as like fears around immigration and like Eastern Europe infiltrating Western Europe and like ethnic otherness and things like that. So what the movie does is basically, the good guys in the story are white Anglo Saxon Christians from England or I think vi Van Helsing is Dutch, but you know, it's all like.

Colonizer vibes for sure.

And then the bad guys, the bad people in the movie are from Eastern Europe, Turkish people and Romani people, because you get this villainization of Romani people. This is something we've discussed a lot on the podcast. In this movie, they are depicted as the like mindless loyal servants of Dracula. They're doing his evil bidding for reasons unknown, maybe that he's promised them eternal life or not sure. But also

Right. So the way that like historical context is brought in is just offensive, which is like irritating, not surprising, But it's like Coppola had such an agenda to like show that Italians are not the stereotypes they're presented as but any nationality that he doesn't associate with, He's like, they are they are You're like, heyah right, yeah, I mean and that's like an element of this story that if you want to do a book adaptation, that's like

Yeah, what else I'd love to shout out the costume designer, yes, and the production design in general, but the costume designer on this movie was Ako Ishioka, who won Yes, but she won an Oscar for costume design in this I think these are some of the best costumes I have ever seen in a movie.

Man that she also did my favorite. She did mirror mirror to the best Enderella costumes ever. She's so good.

So the embarrassing thing that I thought of when I saw this was like this, these might be the best costumes I have ever seen in a movie. And I was like, what else is up there? And I was like the cell And I was like, that's embarrassing, intrusive thoughts that I've just had, And so then I googled and I was like, no, they are really good. And then it turns out she did those.

Yeah, she did a lot, she would do it. I was so sad to see that she'd passed, because I mean, god, so good.

So she was a graphic designer by trade, so she's actually got a Grammy as well for album art design, and she nearly she was nominated for two Tony's for costume design as well, So she nearly had an egot in but in the sphere of design, which is so cool.

That's amazing, so cool. Only musicians do that, that's amazing.

And also I just want to shout out that she didn't ad for a Japanese department store called Parco with Faye done Away and it's just Fade done Away one long shot of her unwrapping and eating a hard boiled egg. It is so surreal. Wow. Yeah, but anyway, Yeah, go check out acho Isshioka's work. She did a she did a music video for B York. Yeah, it's just really cool.

It's beautiful. I appreciated that. Yeah, I was looking for like more about like how Coblu was like choosing who to collaborate with, and I guess he was just like, find me someone weird. Yeah, and they're like, we've got the gal, We've got her, and it's oh my god.

She came Apparently she came to his attention because she'd done some posters for Apocalypse Now that were yeah kidding, yeah, and you can actually see those and they're really great as well. So she was not a costume designer before this movie. He just hired her because she was an amazing graphic designer that rocks.

I was obsessed with Dracula's suit of armor in the opening set because it looks like, yeah, it looks like like muscles with.

The skin removed, you know, it's like very sinewy.

I was like, that looks like the Bodies Exhibit.

Yes, real bodies.

Yeah, but it's like.

Really beefy and bulky.

And I was just like, what is this?

And his helmet is wild?

Yeah.

And then again also just all of the makeup design, like the every I think every monster look he does is like a hit. It is so good.

It's that lucy outfit. Really, I gasped, Yeah.

So thank thank you this movie for all of that.

Indeed, the last thing that I had I was like ragging my brains for what movie we covered recently were this also came up? I'm curious what you both think about it, because this is Frau. But when this movie came out, frank Rich, frank Rich, who you know, not a not a smitless record, but he is the producer of Succession, so no, he's anyways, but he wrote about this movie in relation to the AIDS epidemic? What movie? Where were we talking about recently? Where it also was?

It was was an interview with a vampire.

No, it was more recent than that. I got a but but in that case, the movie was I think the director was asked like, were you trying to like make a comment on the AIDS epidemic? And he was like, oh no, oh my god, because it because if he was, it would have looked really bad.

Was the schol Yeah, I remember the conversation.

In this case, I wasn't able to find any reference of Copola acknowledging that that was something that he intended, But it was definitely something that was mentioned around the discourse of this movie when it came out, and it is still talked about now. There's an article I have here from twenty twenty one from Film Days by a writer named Joshua Sorenson who sort of reflects on how he feels like this movie was in conversation with the AIDS epidemic in nineteen ninety two. And yeah, I just

Of a big blind spot, especially because the movie does kind of collate vamporism with an STI. There's like because Van Helstein talks about like civilization, yeah, and there's this. It's all very like vampism is very sexually transmitted in this movie. So it is kind of weird that it exists in this time where you know, it's such an incredible cause of death and and the movie's kind of like, we're not worried about that. Yeah, we are going to make the allusions to it being sexually transmitted.

Yeah, I mean a lot of horror movies. It feels like a lot of horror movies, either maybe intentionally such as perhaps It follows draws this parallel, or people watching and consuming the movie draw the parallel, right, and that is you know, perhaps a cultural problem where because that

I guess that's maybe just another example of FFC, like degaying this.

Yeah.

Yeah, and so a lot of the gay stuff that was there in the book, or that kind of was an obvious parallel that you could make, has been kind of omitted.

Yeah. I have a bit from this piece by H. Joshua Swords and where he I mean, he gets into it at length, but he sort of draws, I mean, he mostly draws it to Lucy's character and mentions the sort of de queering that FSC does. But he says quote. But even if Dracula's de queering is an attempt to capture the increasing universality of the HIV AIDS epidemic, it is textually undermined as the only two characters to contract disease on screen are the ones who are queer coded

Yeah, and maybe in a sense he wasn't qualified to talk about it anyway, So maybe we're maybe we're better off that he steered clear.

Yeah, I think so. And also it's like I think again, going back to the original text, it was I guess blood transfusions were super new at the time, and some prem Stoker wasn't thinking much harder than like, this is wild. What if I made all these guys do it? Oh?

Yeah, the part where I think it's Arthur and then one of the other boyfriends gives, like donates blood to Lucy and I'm just like, do you even know what your blood type is?

You?

Are you the universal donor? Do you have a matching blood type is Lucy.

That's our typet universal donor. Yeah, I just funny to say that that was an element of the conversation. Yeah, I don't know what to make it, and yeah, yeah nor I. Anyways, that was I think that was the last thing that I had.

Yeah, I just love that. Like every thirty to ninety seconds in this movie, there's just something on screen where you're like, oh my god, either a costume or some special effect or blood gushing from something or blood being puked, or furry palms of hands or Dracula climbing up the wall of the castle or anything like that.

Such a dense movie, there's like so many shots. Well well said, but yeah, I think I hope it's I don't know if we've really clarified when we've been talking about this, but this movie is so camp. It's so silly, Like as much as it's got big themes and it's kind of got like this lush production that makes it feel like a prestige movie, it's also very very very silly, And I mean the women have nothing to do basically there.

Why does cast British people?

What are you doing?

She pronounced win on a writer pronounces the word clerk like clerk.

There's also a moment where she says home we went to.

His then again, oh my gosh, and then oh, I forget what Keanu's line read. Oh he keeps saying beaudapest. I probably knows maybe how you pronounce it. And also we love Keanu. But his excuse for this was I was tired. He was like, you just did point break. I just did a lot of movies in a row. I kind of sleepy, so that's why I didn't do a good job.

You're like, that's what you say in the Francis Ford Coulful movie, You're sleepy, wake up. I love it.

Gary Oldman, I think does potentially the best evil cackle that has ever been on screen. It's good Van Helsing, very camp.

Oh my gosh. I think Hopkins brings it.

Although he might be the worst person in this movie, like the worst man, what do you mean in a movie full of bad men? I think Van Helsing might be kind of the character.

Yeah, oh yeah, it was like not the worst performance, no no, no, no, no no no.

He does a great job. He does a great job. But it's like he's the like he's the toxic mask presence. Like he's kind of worse than Dracula in a way. Dracula is eating a lot of people, but Van Helsing's just like Christian values but also kind of gleefully killing ladies.

Right. Yeah, And we didn't get much into the like religious aspects, but I feel like it's like very much in conversation with the like z a phobia of like basically any non Christian religion is the occult. You're like, ok.

Van Helsing describes Lucy. He says, after she's been bitten and turned into a vampire. He says, Lucy is not a random victim attacked by mere accident. She is a willing recruit, a breathless follower, a wanton follower, a devoted disciple. She is the devil's concubine. Basically just like.

He's literally and I don't know why, like that that did make me laugh when you because because he's literally like kind of jumping up and down. He's like walking away and saying all this fucked up stuff. He's like, she's married to the devil, and he's like also.

Doing something like I want an all female rock band called Devil's Concubine.

We can work with this, yes.

Anthony Hopkins also plays the like clergyman at the very beginning of the movie. Oh yeah, that him. He's in like a scraggly wig and stuff. But yeah, he's the one where Dracula comes back from impaling thousands of people and he's like, I denounce God and Anthony Hopkins priest is like no, don't stop it. And it's pretty good. Uh yeah, there's just I love the like vampire orgy room in the castle.

Yeah yeah, where is.

The like prestige HBO series about Dracula's brides that will justice for them? They the way they died was very lackluster for me.

Yeah, I could have used again, and like I could he used some names. I could have used some names, could names and some stories? How did you become a vampire?

I'd love to see their story. Wow, just because they're just seemed to be having a great time. They're letsing off, they they eat the occasional man, they eat the occasional baby, the eat the occasional horse. Yes, this horrible Christian man comes and cuts their heads off.

It's just give him a chance.

Got to know them seriously.

Yeah. Meanwhile, we're celebrating the boring nuns. They're handing on crucifixes, boring, get a life, eat a horse.

I did appreciate the very least that, even though Mina in the movie, you know, basically just forced into this love story that was invented by the movie, which was written by James V. Hart. Yes, so he adapted the book and wrote the screenplay for this movie.

He's a His other credits are oh yeah, he did Hook. And then he also went on to do Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, which is always a story that she'd be adapted by a woman. Come on, come on, But for what it's worth, even though she's not credited again as a one on ahead, we took this script to Francis Ford Coppola and was like, what do you think? And then.

As an apology for dropping out of gold Father three, Yeah.

Which which only I mean and good call by Winona on that one, because they didn't Sophia Coppola.

Replace her and Apparently the reason I haven't seen famously, haven't seen any FF. But apparently the reason she's so bad in it is because she had one day to prep for the role and that was a case of nepotism maybe gone wrong.

That's it, Yeah, that's It's one thing to hire your.

Magician's son, but she was just doing her dad a favor.

I know, I yeah, that's I'm that's Francis for Copla's fault. That's not God because she wasn't she like a teenager like she was. Also, Winona Writer is an amazing actor. She's been like nominated for She was really on a roll before they were like, we have to kill her because she shoplifted. Kill her, then kill me. I shoplift all the time.

But anyway, so obviously Mena's role is change for the movie, but I do appreciate that she doesn't. She's never like well not never, but she doesn't ultimately become like the damsel in distress. I feel like this type of movie would have Oh, Dracula kidnaps her and then they have to go and rescue her. Rather she's bait, which isn't better really, but but at least at least they.

Bring her along. It makes me sad to be like, but at least she knows she's bait because often they're like, she has no idea, don't tell her right, right, and again like not to but like in the most recent Dracula adaptation, the Lily Rose depth character is like inside for ninety percent. I remember when she left the house on purpose and I was like, but like, you know, Mina, it's still not as active as the original book that was written one hundred years before it came out.

But.

She does. She does do the conclusion of the movie like it's her, which is cool.

Yeah, indeed, does anyone have anything else they'd like to discuss?

That's all I have.

I guess one last thing where Coppola brought in someone to coach Winona Ryder and Sadie Frost, who plays Lucy during their like erotic scenes, because he felt uncomfortable discussing sexuality with these young actors, so he brings in an acting coach named Greta Seacat, which doesn't seem like quite the same thing as a like intimacy coordinator. But I don't think that existed writer, right, But at least it

Apparently the same thing happened with the Brides of Dracula, who had all been cast on the basis that they would be nude in the movie, but then when it came time to shoot, everyone was too nervous to ask them to take their clothes off.

Oh wow.

Yeah, and so I think he ended up getting his magicians on to ask them. Well, so maybe that's why he ended up hiring Greta.

Yeah. Never never, no offense to any listening male magicians, but never underestimate the delusional confidence of a male magician to ask you to do something you don't want to do.

I think potentially they did want to do they didn't mean to it, but.

It's like the magician. You dispatched the magician. It's just it's insulting. I do appreciate at least, I mean again, it's such a little thing. But like a director that knows their limits, that is like, this is out of my comfort zone, which is like directors are entitled to have things outside of their comfort zone as long as they take care of it.

I've got some I've got some kind of warm, fuzzy feelings for FFC after researching this. I have no idea what he's like Beyond this. He's probably done some really horrible stuff. But apparently even when this movie was coming out, he was so afraid of finding out if it was a success because his career was really riding on it.

Right.

He took all of his family on holiday and he couldn't look at it. He was too stressed and scared. And he finally got his wife to be, like to check the box office and she's like, add it up, it's a huge hit. But he was just like, really scared and nervous.

I for what I can tell, and like, I'm listeners sent me straight if I'm wrong. He's a relatively scandal free director.

Cool.

I was also very like, he's not my favorite director by any stretch of the imagination, but I just like I do like watching him talk. I like that he make takes big, weird swings even when I don't like them. And I really like that he made Anthony Hopkins play zip Zapps off like it does seem like, you know, comparatively, especially in the generation of directors that he's a part of. He seems like a relatively sweet person.

Right, He's coming off of making what's largely considered some of the greatest movies in American film history, between the first two Godfather movies and Apocalypse Now, so you think that would inflate his ego so much that he would just be a terror on set. But it seems like maybe not so.

Good guy, question the bars, but it is, I mean, his career is there there. Guest of the show Maya made a video when Megalopolis came out that had like traced his like wild history and like movie finance, where like if he didn't have the winery, he'd be so fucked many times over. But like that, even after one of the other Copla movies we've covered that I always forget is directed by him, is Peggy Sho got married and like so he I don't know if like that's

Everyone, like producers, critics, everyone in the industry basically thought this movie would be a huge flop at the box office, and we're like surprised that it wasn't because it was made for a budget of forty million dollars, which seems less than I would have thought because of how much like just money you see on screen with the practical sets and effects and costumes and all that.

Which he dealt with by shooting and this ended up. I thought it was like a creative choice because he was like paying homage to the original Monster movies or whatever. But he shot it entirely on sound stages. I think it looks awesome because it shot on sound stages. Yeah.

Well, part of that was because he had gone over budget and like time scheduling for his previous movies, and he's like, I don't want to make anyone mad again. I'm gonna do it, play it safe and like shoot inside kind of thing.

This way, the studio execs could keep an eye on him, and they could visit set every day as well and see what he was doing.

They're like, okay, do we do we have is Reeves playing zipzabsop? Good good job.

But anyway, made for a budget of forty million dollars and grossed two hundred and nineteen million dollars.

In nineteen ninety two dollars, it was one of the biggest movies of the year.

Yeah, it beat out like Back to the Future two and damn so good for him.

Do you think this movie is remembered particularly, not as.

Much as I would say. Obviously has a cult following. Obviously people return to it, but I feel like it doesn't get brought up quite as much as you would expect.

That's kind of how I feel too.

Yeah, I've been I until you started raving about it. I don't know if I even knew it existed till like the last couple of years. But also, the Dracula space is very crowd Yeah, there's a lot of there's a lot of competition in Dracula movies, but this is like definitely one of my favorites. Yeah, it's number six on Vultures Draculas.

Wow, number six, Sorry, what's number one?

I think it's the original nose fora tu Let me check which you know, fair.

Enough Normalstracula two thousand.

This is technically Dracular rankings Dracula Performance Rankings. Gary Oldman comes in at number six.

Oh wow.

Number five is Christopher Lee, who apparently played Dragula in Like Movies fifteen.

Oh wow, he definitely was in like A nineteen fifty nine.

I want to say yes, he started playing Dragula in nineteen fifty eight and played him all the way through nineteen seventy six, So maybe that's out of sheer volume actually knows Vatu. The original Nos Foraratu is number four.

Number three played by Max Shrekrap Exactly.

Number three is William Marshall in Blacula and screen Blacula Scream. Number two is something I haven't seen klaus Kinski in the Werner Herzog remake of Nos Farratu. He's supposed to be the most soulful Draculum. And then number one's bella logo. Fine, fine, I get it sure below below anyways, it's a crowded space, the Dracula space. Yeah, where does Dard Butler? Dr Butler comes in at number twenty nine.

Brutal, brutal of how many.

Thirty two?

That makes me want to see that movie so much more.

It sounds like a truly perfect candidate for your show.

Yea, yeah, I think Dracula's on a plane at one point, Oh my god, you should I think instead of the Demeter. It's a plane.

Have you seen I Frankenstein? No, Oh my god, you've got to cover Bye Frankenstein. Yeah, it's that but Frankenstein. And it's Aaron what's his name, Aaron Eckhart, coming off of his playing two Face. He's going to start a franchise and it does not happen. It's nice, is there, fab It's great?

That's awesome. Well, does the movie past the Bechdel test?

Real thing?

I do think it does.

Okay, here's what I've concluded. I obviously, Mina and Lucy talk quite a bit in a number of different scenes, and sometimes they're talking about a typewriter or a dream or a book, but it's almost always in the context of like, oh, you're writing, you're using your typewriter to write a letter to a man, or I had a dream about hetero sex with a man. So, and then they more explicitly talk about Jonathan, about Lucy's three boyfriends,

Yeah, men, and like the point of everymen scene is ends up about sex or men, right, I think.

So, Yeah, let me see what the technical passes were, because I did kind of forget, Oh.

Did you consult Bechdel test dot com, Bechdel test dot com, scholarly journal.

Yeah. People think we spend the who whole show trying to figure this out and sometimes we don't even remember to do it. Attention it does. Yeah, so I think it's just technical passes. I guess that, Like, I mean, it doesn't pass the Bechdel test if by in our estimation.

I mean, does it count if they're just like we're both horny when that.

Wasn't legal, like get your head cut off? In this culture?

Does it pass the test when they kiss each other? Because I would argue that kissing is communication, It's true.

The language of love, It's true.

I think I think you could I would agree to a soft pass argument, but like it's not you know, if we had to talk about it for this long, it's not a great bath.

But examining it through the Bechdel cast Nipple scale, this scale where we rate the movie zero to five nipples based on examining it through an intersectional feminist lens. Ooh, this one's tricky. I think it's sort of like a split down the middle. For me, I would give it ten out of ten on the Horny scale. I would give it probably like an eight out of ten on

It's so big.

Can I touch it? And then it's just mean of being like, my friend Lucy is amazing. I love that.

Yeah, and it ends up being about Quincy's knife, but it's really about.

Why do you think that a lesser movie would not to start the episode again, but like a lesser movie would make Lucy out to be this like big joke, like broad, you know, slutty character, and she's not that. She's not punished. She's punished about as as one could be. But it isn't like, oh, we shouldn't like or respect this character, Like this character isn't worth virtuous Mina's time, Like she's like, wow, that's awesome.

I love that she does that. It's great. So that's who gets my nipples. And I love the movie the.

End I'm going to go I'll go to as well. I feel like as a yardstick, it is like so gorgeous, it is so campy. But if the movie from nineteen ninety two is less gay than the book from eighteen ninety seven, it was a problem. We have a problem. But yeah, I think that the Mina adjustments, like it

I do.

Ship Mina and Lucy. I do love their friendship. I think that they are the best on screen pairing, and I wish that they had just run away from whatever the fuck was going on in this movie.

Yeah, I think that they should have paired off and then Lucy's three boyfriends should have gotten everybody.

Should just be gay, be gay, cry eat babies. But did you do not think that their kiss was a little bit male gaze?

Yeah?

Yeah, it's like drack keels like and now you're gonna kiss.

Yeah, I mean the way that like Lucy's tits are out and every scene gratuitously, it is very gratuitous.

I don't know, I'm not I could. I was like it was a hot kid. Oh no, I think you're right, You're right, and we have to say it. Yeah, I'll go to nipples wanted to mean and one to Lucy perfect.

Yeah, I think for all of the reasons you've said, I'm gonna I'm gonna also give it two nipples. I've got consensus. One other thing that I remembered about why I hate Van helsing, and it's just symbolic of like the kind of man stuff that's all over this movie is at the end of the movie, Winona's turning into a vampire, and she's like, gonna try and seduce him and turn him into a vampire, And so she kisses him, but he fully kisses her back. He's like yeah, He's

Oh yeah, my god, you've got to go to the pile of remi icon, queer icon, that pile of rats. Everything.

One more nice thing about my two favorite male actors in this movie was that Francis for Coppola did encourage Gary Oldman to say gross things to people in her ear. So he was complicent in that, which when on a rider would say later she was very uncomfortable with. She really didn't like it. She felt unsafe. I guess that Francis Ford Coppola asked Keanu and Anthony Hopkins to do the same thing, and they were like, no, we're not going to do that. That does She's an actor. I

Yeah, and Anthony Hopkins also apparently she was afraid of fire. She has a like lifelong fear of fire, and so they had to do that scene where they're in a ring of fire. And as soon as they started filming, he picked her up and carried her out of the fire. He was like, very protective of her. And yeah, he also didn't he didn't want to shout you slut at her on a on a film set, which was you know, as.

A low bar. Yeah. I was like, wow, femin it's not called what men of so many men want to yell at. Well, you know, there's a lot of men barely clearing the bar of decency in this in the story of this production. Yeah, did we do it.

We did the episode. Chrystal, Thank you so much, thank you for joining.

Us, Thank you for having me, And if you're listening, allow me one last shameless plug and if you're anything like me and two weeks between episodes of The Bechdel Cast is far too long, feel free to check out camp Classics for more of my unqualified opinions about movies.

Amazing. Yeah, please cover I Frankenstein.

Wait, I am going to need to move on from vampires at some point.

Yeah. And guess who's gonna be waiting for you? HOODI Frankenstein, hoodie nunchuck.

You did not say hoodie or nunchuck earlier.

Sexy hoodie nunchuck. I love my favorite shot in all of movies. They showed the passage of time of like three hundred years of just a static shot of I Frankenstein on top of them out and swinging nun chucks and they're like three hundred years past. It just cuts to the presence. You're gonna love it. Oh, I wish I could see it again for the first time. I love it.

Where can people follow you online?

So I'm at Crystal We'll See You Now on Instagram and TikTok, and my podcast is at KEMP Classics Podcast on Instagram.

Yay.

You can follow us on Instagram as well. At Bechdelcast. You can also subscribe to our Patreon aka Matreon. That's the best way to support the show. It's only five dollars a month, and you get access to two bonus episodes every month, and the entire back catalog of it's almost two hundred bonus episodes.

So there's no time as a brutal mistress.

And I think that's where our I Frankenstein episode lives. That was a Matreon episode if I remember correctly.

Yeah, that we've Caitlin let me do that one as a treat and then entered the community. I frank I owe you as a joke. If it came a passion, I owe you a debt of gratitude, thank you so much. Yeah, thank you for thanking me again, of course.

And uh yeah, check out our link tree. There's links there to stuff. Link tree slash. Bechdel Cast love you, Bye bye bye, goodbye.

There is.

The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted by Caitlin Dorante and Jamie loftis produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited by Mola Board. Our theme song was composed by Mike Kaplan with vocals by Catherine Volskrosensky. Our logo and merch is designed by Jamie Loftis, and a special thanks to Aristotle Acevedo. For more information about the podcast, please visit link Tree Slash Bechdel Cast