189: Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Those are not lesbian hands.

SPEAKER_04 0:06

Oh god, they're the opposite. Whatever the opposite of lesbian hands is, is what these are.

SPEAKER_01 0:14

Greetings and salutations, and welcome to Hacker Slash. If you're joining us again, welcome back. I have crossed oceans of time to find you. If this is your first time listening, welcome to the party. We are a horror movie review podcast dedicated to telling you whether a movie is a hack.

SPEAKER_03 0:29

A total joke, waste of time.

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Or a slash.

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Totally killer, pun intended.

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We believe horror is for everyone, and as such, we're rating these movies with the perspective we've gained from our varying walks of life and the flavors of fear we fancy most. My name is Chris, I'm your friendly neighborhood slasher enthusiast. This week I'm joined by the Superfly Space Guy Mac.

SPEAKER_04 0:48

Hola muchachos.

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And the Scream Queen Paris.

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Here I am, almost 20, practically a hag.

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This week we're exploring a film that's considered to be the definitive adaptation of a classic literary work. Before we turn the pages though, we have some follow-up.

SPEAKER_04 1:02

Speaking of definitive adaptations of classic literary works, we recently reviewed Fear Street Part 3, 1666, based on the novel by R. L. Stein.

SPEAKER_01 1:12

Classically a loose interpretation that has nothing to do with the actual books, but yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:16

Oh, I was hoping he was writing lesbian fanfiction far before his time. Anyway, we reviewed the film and we wanted to hear what our listeners thought, so we had a poll like we do every week. The results are in. Surprisingly, and maybe this is only surprising to me, as it often is, 11% hacked it and a whole 89% gave it a slash.

SPEAKER_01 1:35

That's because 1989 was a good year.

SPEAKER_04 1:37

It was very well received. We have a comment from one of our listeners who said, I enjoy this. I'd give it a slash. I watched the three back to back when they came out, not expecting much, thinking it was for kids, and at the time I was looking for a light watch, but man, I got sucked in. I wasn't expecting the gore. Especially with kids, I was like, oh man, wow, they're doing this. It also helped that the main characters were lesbians. I think that they did a great job with it. I totally agree with Chris that in the 1666, the real monsters were the people. I came out in the late 80s. It was terrifying, it wasn't fun. I feared the breeders, not the band, I loved them. So the stressors in the 1666 struck me. But yeah, it had its goofy moments. I welcomed them. I'll have to rewatch. I had forgotten a lot, apparently, about the ending. But overall, I thought it was a fun ride.

SPEAKER_01 2:23

Yeah, I absolutely love this comment, especially with the personal connections to thinking about how this movie can send us back to particular moments in our lives, I can't imagine coming out in the 80s. Uh particularly, I think we discussed this during our bonus episode on Scream Queen My Nightmare on Elm Street. It's just an absolutely horrific time. And I think for a trilogy to do what Fear Street did, to take a, you know, young adult kind of novel for teenagers, really, add some new elements to it, modernize it a bit, and still strike those chords with a wide range of audiences, absolutely love it.

SPEAKER_04 3:00

And honestly, it always helps when the main characters are lesbians.

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100%. You never go wrong.

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And that's our follow-up.

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Well, after a financial failure in the early 80s, acclaimed filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola's production company was in jeopardy of bankruptcy and financial ruin. Now, in the midst of that hardship, Coppola took up Paramount's offer to make a third Godfather film in hopes it helped the company recover financially. Godfather Part Three ultimately received poor critical response, partially due to the performance of Sophia Coppola in her role as Mary Corleone, a role that was originally supposed to be filled by Winona Ryder. While she was originally cast in the role, she ultimately backed out of it as production began. Six months later, Winona Ryder and Coppola met to clear the air and discuss another project, and it was then that she presented him with a screenplay that piqued his interest. It was an adaptation of the iconic novel that features an English solicitor visiting a Transylvania castle and a vampiric count traveling to London to wreak havoc. Now, while considered to be one of the most faithful adaptations of the original novel, Coppola made his mark with several changes, including an origin story for our central vampire and a romantic subplot. The third Godfather film didn't help Coppola financially recover, but he assembled an A-list cast to bring a classic novel to life. And in the end, he helmed an Academy Award-winning film that grossed more than $215 million worldwide. Coppola's production company was saved, and in turn, the world was given an iconic film about the most famous vampire. This week we're talking about the 1992 film Bram Stoker's Dracula. Now who's seen this one before?

SPEAKER_03 4:34

I have. It's been probably a good decade since the last time I watched it, but this is something I've seen. I have never seen this movie before.

SPEAKER_01 4:42

But have you read the book?

SPEAKER_04 4:44

Of course not. I also thought that the book was written by a woman and had no idea who Bram Stoker was.

SPEAKER_01 4:49

Bram Stoker is famously rumored to be gay. How could you not appreciate Bram Stoker?

SPEAKER_04 4:54

Okay, the interesting thing here is that I thought he was the director or producer of this movie and could have told you that he was gay from that, which is not true.

SPEAKER_01 5:03

Paris. We have a lot of work to do.

SPEAKER_04 5:05

I know. I'm a mess this episode. Get ready.

SPEAKER_01 5:07

I haven't seen this movie. I've seen many adaptations of Dracula. You've seen Dracula in different forms over the decades, but I never saw this movie. I did, though, read the book when I was younger. I listened to an audiobook that's partially narrated by Tim Curry and a whole all-star ensemble of folks on Audible. And a few years there was also a very loosely inspired uh adaptation of Dracula with Jonathan Reese Myers as Dracula, and I absolutely love that. I know it only lasted one season. A lot of people hate it. But I hadn't seen this one. I think I hadn't seen it because I had this really weird thing with Keanu Reeves. Liked him in Speed. I haven't really liked him in much else. I also haven't seen The Matrix, so forgive me.

SPEAKER_05 5:52

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 5:53

But this is one where going into it, I was expecting to see things that I've already seen. I know the Dracula story. I think one of the cool things about the book is that it's kind of like the found footage of books because it's not written to have a central hero. It's all just written through like diary entries and newspaper clippings, etc. So I was expecting this to kind of be all over the place, but I thought it would be closer to that. What were you folks expecting?

SPEAKER_04 6:19

So I truthfully thought this was going to be like a black and white Dracula movie from ancient times, and it was just going to be like some old ancient bullshit. Um, and then I saw like the like the little preview image when I went to watch it, and I was like, oh, I recognize that wig on that Dracula with like the two platinum buns. And I've always remembered like that that specific design was always like a turnoff to me, and I was like, I don't know what that is, but I'm never gonna watch that. But also question the novel that this is based off by Bram Stoker, did he invent Dracula? Was that like the first time Dracula was became a character? Because I'm realizing that I was confusing this novel with Frankenstein by Marie Curie. Mary Shelley. Mary Shelley. Oh, Marie Curie was a scientist.

SPEAKER_01 7:00

Bram Stoker did create Dracula. He wrote Dracula inspired by a couple different things, one of whom was Vlad the Impaler.

SPEAKER_03 7:08

Ah, I'm very familiar with his work. Having seen this before, I was expecting to, you know, go back to the movie I had seen when I had seen it. You know, I expected to be in the same feelings and feeling the same vibe, and like it had a special place in my heart having seen it many years ago, and I thought I was gonna like be teleported back to I don't even know the last time I saw it. I've seen it a couple times, but like it's gotta be at least when I was in my like mid-20s. So it's been it's been a while since I watched this movie, and I totally thought I was just gonna be transported back in time and start feeling the same things as when I saw it last time.

SPEAKER_01 7:42

That sounds like it could have been a pleasant expectation to have. And let me tell you, walking in with the affinity that I have for Dracula in general, I went into this with a lot of hope. And I think it started out really, really strong. I think the beginning, the movie's beginning, it's very dramatic. This movie is like very theatric, not in terms of like a movie or cinematic way, but it's filmed on sound stages, things like that. And I think a lot of it harkens back to even Suspiria for me. So a lot of it felt very giallo in some ways, but it starts really strong. I think it ends pretty strong, but the middle left me with this really uncomfortable feeling of is this boredom? Is this what I feel? I love Winona Rider so much. Anthony Hopkins is in this amazing. I don't much care for Gary Ollman, but Keanu Reeves had no business being in this movie, and it was a travesty.

SPEAKER_04 8:35

My feelings while I was watching this movie were all over the place. In the beginning, I was like, Winona Rider, Keanu Reeves, what the fuck? And I was like, okay, cool, maybe I'll like this. And then I saw the costumes and I was like, oh, okay. The set design. It was introduced to the Dracula character in a way I'd never expected. And then Chris, you're totally right. The middle has a lot of boring parts. I feel like my feelings can be visualized like an ECG where it's like flat line. Ooh, interesting and exciting. Flat line. Oh, what's that now? Flatline. And it was really kind of tiring to the point where I did fall asleep watching this last night and had to finish in it this morning.

SPEAKER_03 9:15

Oddly enough, I had a similar experience. I fell asleep multiple times while watching it, and my wife had to like wake me up and be like, You're watching the movie, wake up. You need to keep watching. And I did not expect that to happen. I think maybe it's just from being exhausted from work. Let's blame it on that. But you know, I was I was not expecting this like pacing that you mentioned, Paris. It's just something that slips my memory completely. So watching this, I was expecting a lot of the action that you get in like the final third of the movie, but you have to wait till the final third of the movie to get there. And I don't know why, I just imagined the entire thing was like filled with that. I mean, while I'm awake and while I'm watching it, yes, it's enjoyable and it has really interesting things on screen, but with that runtime, anytime it slows down, it feels like it slows way down.

SPEAKER_01 10:04

Yeah, and that's the thing. There are some things that happen in the middle where it's like, that's a great moment. Okay, we need this to move the narrative forward. And then it just we go too far on this like back and forth of someone is turning, but let's research this. Someone is turning, but let's research this. There's dirt being moved across continents. It's just it's just too much. It's just too much. And I think that was something that was both surprising and disappointing for me, not only in Keanu Reeves's performance and how stiff he was, despite how handsome he was, but it was just I remember the book feeling so eerie and so captivating. And this represented Dracula in a way that I didn't particularly care for. I'm not against the romantic subplot here. I think you know it's very Romeo and Juliet, it's very Star-Crossed lovers, and I'm hopeless romantic, so I'm cool with it. But I think Gary Ullman's portrayal of Dracula, and this is gonna sound sacrilegious because I know a lot of people love him, it's a little bit too dramatic for me. It's a little bit too wide gestures, it's it's a little bit too intense in all the wrong ways. So I feel like while I I like the ideas on paper, it just didn't really hit for me totally.

SPEAKER_03 11:22

That makes sense to me because I think you know, Paris made mention of expecting no Sferatu, and I think a lot of people had that in mind where he was more creepy than he was like in love. Do you mean crape, Mac? Creepy paper.

SPEAKER_04 11:36

As far as things that surprise me, Chris mentioned it already, the theatrical vibe of this movie. It reminded me of the Labyrinth with David Bowie, in the fact that there's like a lot of really intricate sets that were built for this, the costuming. Like visually, I was not expecting this movie to deliver what it delivered. One of my biggest disappointments was seeing that Anthony Hopkins was in the opening credits, not seeing him until maybe the halfway point of the movie, and then being super underwhelmed with everything his character did and had to say.

SPEAKER_01 12:08

Oh, but he had two very funny moments.

SPEAKER_04 12:11

I must have missed him.

SPEAKER_01 12:12

Oh no, he delivered the small bits of comedic gold in this movie, generally underwhelmed by the character as a whole. But at least those two moments, I'm like, alright, cool. I'm glad you got Anthony Hopkins to do this, because anyone else pulling this shit off wouldn't have even been redeemed by that.

SPEAKER_04 12:29

I'm excited to find out what these moments are because I bet they were funny and I just missed it.

SPEAKER_03 12:33

I I think you'll find that you enjoy them again when Chris will, you know, tell you exactly what you missed, because you probably watched it and just glossed right over it. Because he was he was an enjoyable character. I mean, I remembered him being in it once I saw him, but leading into it, I was kind of surprised by how many stars were in this cast. I totally forgot who was here. I don't know how they pulled it off, to be honest. How did they get so many big names in this film and small roles? That is crazy to me that, like, hey, you want to pay this, you want to play this like you know, character that's kind of on screen for however many minutes of the movie. And sure, let's do it. Like, how? I don't understand how back in 1992, like that kind of stuff happens.

SPEAKER_01 13:15

Well, this was actually assembled to be, I think it's referenced as Winona Ryder's dreamcast, like her A team of like who she wanted to be in a movie with.

SPEAKER_04 13:25

I love that. She did a really good job of casting. I think Winona Ryder was sort of a star in this movie. Um, also really surprised that I've never seen this before because of all the people that are in it that I love and a lot of like the visual elements.

SPEAKER_01 13:36

I think one of the things that bummed me out was thinking about this as being like the early 90s. So we know that Johnny Depp and Winona Ryder are a thing. And I was watching this thinking, wow, Johnny Depp would make such a better Jonathan than Keanu Reeves. And then to later find out that he was actually going to originally be cast really pissed me off.

SPEAKER_04 13:57

Yeah, literally, just as you said, Johnny Depp, I was like, oh, he would have been a great Dracula.

SPEAKER_01 14:01

Oh, yeah. Could have been.

SPEAKER_04 14:03

Speaking of the Dracula of It All, I don't think this movie was particularly frightening, and that might just be how it has aged. But I will say this Dracula was probably the scariest part, particularly like the hands of it all. These were the ugliest, nastiest hands I've ever seen, and so much camera time was given to them.

SPEAKER_00 14:24

Those are not lesbian hands.

SPEAKER_04 14:25

Oh god, they're the opposite. Whatever the opposite of lesbian hands is, is what these are. You mean so basically porn lesbian hands? But worse.

SPEAKER_01 14:33

But old, yeah. But make them old and decrepit.

SPEAKER_04 14:36

And have hair on the palms.

SPEAKER_01 14:38

Oh god, that was so bad. So bad.

SPEAKER_03 14:41

And like jagged nails. But I think they did a good job of like showing him on screen how he was described in the literary word.

SPEAKER_01 14:50

He was supposed to have a mustache, bro.

SPEAKER_03 14:52

He did have a mustache.

SPEAKER_01 14:53

He was clean shaven.

SPEAKER_04 14:54

Well, he was just kind of furry all over, so. Like the younger and middle-aged versions of him had mustaches.

SPEAKER_01 14:59

Yeah, but old him was not like it didn't match what my mind had created when reading the original book.

SPEAKER_04 15:06

Isn't that always the way?

SPEAKER_01 15:07

It is, except for Katniss Everdeen. She was great. They really nailed that one.

SPEAKER_04 15:11

Your mind conjured up Jennifer Lawrence. Jennifer Lawrence. Wow, I'm ashamed that I couldn't come up with her name.

SPEAKER_01 15:18

Yeah, the cat was the only thing that was inaccurate there. I think the younger version certainly looked better, but I think I also just find Gary Oldman entirely unattractive. So I don't see him as this seductive vampire. And I get like he's only there for his long-lost love. Sure, I'm here for it. But I also just don't feel like he matches with the woman he's supposed to be in love with.

SPEAKER_03 15:46

I think it was a different time though, because I'm sure other people were considered for the role, but in the early 90s there was like a thing for long hair and clean-shaven faces. And now we've kind of flip-flopped. We went through short hair with beards, and now it's like long hair with beards, is cool.

SPEAKER_01 16:01

But let's be clear, Keanu Reese was cast because they wanted a bigger heartthrob than Johnny Depp to play this guy. But then they give you fucking Gary Oldman as Dracula. That doesn't make sense. They knew what they were doing with heartthrobs.

SPEAKER_04 16:16

I'm gonna say something probably controversial, but I'm going through his IMDB, and I just don't think I like Gary Oldman at all. The closest thing I've ever enjoyed him in is Harry Potter, and even then it was very meh.

SPEAKER_01 16:26

Who was he in Harry Potter?

SPEAKER_04 16:27

He played Serious Black.

SPEAKER_01 16:29

Oh.

SPEAKER_04 16:29

But that's it. Like, yeah, I get that he's good at acting, and he like disappears into his roles because he's in a hundred things that I didn't realize were him. But like, I don't like him. I'm sorry, Gary.

SPEAKER_01 16:38

He's better as Serious Black. I I would not have connected him to being Dracula.

SPEAKER_03 16:42

This is so crazy because I love Gary Oldman as an actor. He's in some really great roles, and I think I've enjoyed pretty much everything I've seen him in.

SPEAKER_04 16:48

I mean, listen, I'm prepared to be alone on this hill. I know he's like beloved by the world, but now I'm just realizing for the first time that I don't really understand it.

SPEAKER_01 16:56

I don't care for him.

SPEAKER_03 16:57

But I will agree with Paris, you know, with his earlier statement that the movie is not scary. I don't think it's really meant to be that scary. I I don't want to see a Dracula made in a scary version where it's like modern horror. I would be kind of bored by that, or it would kind of ruin the character. I think it has to have that like implied sexiness, it has to have the implied mystique, but he also has to be really gross. And I don't know if that just makes the character less scary or if we just need to see him depicted in a different way for it to work.

SPEAKER_01 17:27

To be fair, I do think the only thing that was scary about this was the hands. That's legitimately it just imagine those things touching you.

SPEAKER_04 17:34

Oh no, stop.

SPEAKER_03 17:35

If you're scared by the hands, did you not look at the neck?

SPEAKER_01 17:38

That for me was the only thing that really grossed me out in this movie. I do think they make some very specific choices that could be seen as gory or questionable at best. But I will say this it's different from the book. And there are a lot of things that are similar, right? I I know that it's this is considered to be one of the most faithful adaptations, but there was enough done in this that made me feel like I wasn't just reading the book. I don't know if it's a good or bad thing yet. I'm still sorting out my feelings, but I do think for this to be another adaptation of Dracula, and by this point we had had so many before this movie, I do think it made some solid choices to set itself apart.

SPEAKER_04 18:19

Having not seen any other real Dracula pieces of media, I feel like this is super original. I've seen many, many things within this movie that I'd never seen before in my life. So this is definitely getting quite a few originality points for me.

SPEAKER_03 18:33

It's kind of crazy that Dracula in in 1992, Dracula was already around for like a hundred years almost in the way that we would think about him. But yeah, so it loses originality points there, but you've never seen him portrayed in this way. And I think just as an overall movie, it left such an impression on the idea of vampires in film that it affected everything else that came after it. So, sure, it's not the original Bram Stoker Dracula in you know, printed word, but it just kind of changed what vampires would be in general. So it gets major originality points there.

SPEAKER_04 19:10

I love that, Mac. It definitely feels like this movie heavily informed the modern visual language of how we view vampires. Very much the blueprint. And I think there's a lot of vampire content that is modern that references this ending. I will be lying if I said I didn't get a specific Twilight vibe from a particularly intimate scene in the climax.

SPEAKER_01 19:32

There are certainly a lot of references to the ending in this, and I think one of the things that I appreciate about the ending of this movie is how conclusive it is. It feels so much better as an ending than I think the book's ending is. It's impossible to have this ending in the book because of the amount of changes, but I think this one left me feeling better emotionally than reading the book.

SPEAKER_03 19:59

I think it had a pretty strong ending. I unfortunately fell asleep leading up to the end. So it's like one of those where I had to wake up and then keep watching and remember what I had kind of half awakeningly seen. So but I've seen it before, so it doesn't matter. But the ending here, it does this where like it does this thing where like makes you work for the end, right? Where like there's a lot going on as it builds up. It's and it's all of a sudden, too, because for most of the movie, there's like spikes, and we get these little spikes, and then when we get to the end, it's just like a ton of stuff all at once, and it kind of exhausts things where by the end you feel relieved when everything is over. And that's it's so effective here. I think you don't imagine that there would be a sequel or that they would try to do anything with it. You just know that like this story has been told.

SPEAKER_01 20:46

Well, let's see if that sense of relief translates to some positive ratings here. Now, before we get into the scoring of this film, what's our body count?

SPEAKER_03 20:53

Our body count for Bram Soaker's Dracula is a pretty good number. We have a lucky number nine.

SPEAKER_01 20:58

Hmm, a nine. Kind of an 8.5, if you really want to be specific, but I think rounding up is fair. But what about the animal report?

SPEAKER_04 21:06

This is not a good animal report. There is a menagerie of animals that bad things happen to. Maybe our worst in some time. I'm glad Ryan was not here to have to see this.

SPEAKER_01 21:17

Well, let's go ahead and get into our ratings then, Bram Stoker's Dracula from 1992. Was it a hack or slash?

SPEAKER_04 21:24

So I really had low expectations for this movie. I thought it was gonna be bad. And for the most part it was. This movie is mostly long, too long, boring, to the point where you might fall asleep. There's a cool hour in the middle of this movie that could really use an edit. But also, I loved a lot of things about this movie. The visual style was really something I enjoyed. I love the labyrinth. I love like anytime people are putting like a lot of effort into set design and costumes. The costumes in this movie, oh my god, I'm obsessed with them. So truly, this movie is bad, but I'm actually. Gonna give it a slash. It's it comes with an asterisk. It's a slash. I recommend that you watch it to have the visuals embedded in your brain for future reference, but just be warned, it drags a lot of it's not good, but the parts that are good are really good, and they're almost all superficial and lacking in substance. But some of the best things in life are.

SPEAKER_03 22:24

That was not what I expected from you, I'll be honest. Because I think you've said before that vampires are inherently hot, and I just expected, well, this or that, but vampires. So they're hot. But for me, I think it's weird. I had this glowing nostalgia in my mind for this movie where I thought it was just so great, it was the best vampire movie ever made. And I don't necessarily think that's true anymore. I think it's a pretty good vampire movie, but there I think there's better stuff out there in the world. Obviously, what we do in the shadows is the most recent like incarnation of vampires that I really appreciate. But back in the day, I even enjoyed watching True Blood. You know, I don't know if that says anything about me. But this this movie's good though. It's it's something that you can enjoy watching. It's long, it gets really slow. There are some parts that kind of make you go, why? But it's overall a good watch. I think you've got amazing actors, you've got amazing acting as well. These actors are like really putting in some work. And then there's Keanu Reeves. And Keanu Reeves was so horribly miscast for this role. It's just painful. It's actually kind of funny anytime he speaks because he attempts to do an accent and it's so bad that he shouldn't have even tried to do one whatsoever. It would have worked so much better if there was not even a hint of him trying. But I digress. I think overall the movie's enjoyable. It's very entertaining. It is kind of a monolith when it comes to vampire movies. Like when you watch this, you'll understand how everything else afterwards really just lived in its shadow for a good, you know, 20 years at least before something new really came along. So it's a slash for me.

SPEAKER_04 24:03

Mac, this very much feels like something that would belong in the Library of Congress.

SPEAKER_03 24:07

Oh, absolutely. This is a movie that deserves to win awards in my book.

SPEAKER_01 24:11

Well, it did. Several, in fact.

SPEAKER_04 24:13

Which is good. I'm glad we acknowledged this when it happened.

SPEAKER_01 24:16

So this movie is all over the place. It has its highs, it has its lows. Honestly, Keanu Reeves is a really big low because I think the diary entries that we get from his character in the novel, there's like this really interesting perspective on how you're slowly realizing just exactly what's wrong in this picture and the things that he goes through. And then that all that feels like just wasted opportunity and wasted time. And I was actively rooting against him specifically in this movie. Gary Oldman is something that is someone that I'm not a huge fan of, but I do like his young Dracula. I think Winona Ryder had some peaks and valleys in her accent work and her performance, but I love her so much. And I think this movie has two main things that really go for it, and that's its stunning cinematography and its practical effects that are mostly done in camera. There's only one thing in this movie that was done in post. There's a moment later in the film that feels very western and very campy, which I'm not a fan of, but overall, I think the music and the visuals carries the weight of this movie and it makes up where so many other areas of it lacks. And while this is not my favorite vampire media, this isn't even my favorite version of Dracula, it does get a soft slash.

SPEAKER_04 25:41

Well, look at that. A reluctant universal slash.

SPEAKER_01 25:45

A reluctant universal slash, indeed. But can I tell you something, Paris, that I think will make you very excited, just as excited as I am for something that's coming up soon?

SPEAKER_04 25:54

Oh my god, what?

SPEAKER_01 25:55

There is gonna be a new adaptation of Dracula, and it's going to be by the director of Jennifer's Body.

SPEAKER_03 26:01

Ooh. Will it be within the like universal universe of monsters, though?

SPEAKER_01 26:06

Yes. So there the movie is in partnership with Blumhouse, who was working with Universal, because Universal's been trying to uh revamp their monsters, right? So we had the Invisible Man.

SPEAKER_04 26:17

Oh, that was a great revamp.

SPEAKER_01 26:19

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04 26:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 26:21

So there are promising things on the horizon. What I'm really excited about, she has this quote about it being a fairly faithful adaptation of the novel. She said, It's using the idea, I think, of something that gets overlooked in adaptations of Dracula in the past, which is the idea of multiple voices. In fact, the book is filled with different points of view, and then one point of view we don't get access to, and most adaptations give access to, is Dracula himself. So I'd say in some respect this is going to be an adaptation called Dracula, but it's perhaps not the same kind of romantic hero that we've seen in past interpretations of Dracula. So I'm really, really excited for that, knowing what she did with Jennifer's body, which feels Dracula adjacent.

SPEAKER_04 27:01

I love this. I think it would be really good to tell a story about Dracula that doesn't focus too much on Dracula himself. Like, never let me look directly at him. Only ever like in periphery, you know?

SPEAKER_01 27:10

That'd be a good approach indeed. Now you can find this movie streaming on Netflix. Catch it while you can. Don't pay to rent it like I did, like a chump, before I realized it was on Netflix. Either way, check it out. Then join us in the second half so we can unpack this together. See you in a bit.

SPEAKER_02 27:37

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SPEAKER_04 28:57

Listen, I have some big shoes to fill because Alexis is not here. But we have concluded that the gore score here is medium. We get some gore that's like pretty intense, but it's sprinkled throughout. It's dispersed pretty scarcely, I'd say.

SPEAKER_01 29:12

Just large volumes of blood if you were to sum it all up together, but evenly distributed. Like um like a single coat of paint.

SPEAKER_04 29:21

You think? I feel like they took the brush and like flicked it at the whatever it is, and then there's like speckles.

SPEAKER_01 29:26

A single coat of paint is famously uh not a lot. That's why you need a double coat.

SPEAKER_04 29:31

Okay. I I agree we could have used more gore. Yeah, this this paint does not have primer built in. Well, as for that blood, it turns out that they actually used red jelly to create this effect.

SPEAKER_01 29:42

Which doesn't surprise me. I do hate jelly.

SPEAKER_04 29:45

Okay, but I kind of was surprised because they managed to do quite a bit with jelly as far as like viscosity goes.

SPEAKER_01 29:50

Oh, just had a little bit of water, who knows what you get.

SPEAKER_04 29:52

Yeah. They had a lot of different textures that they were able to create with this, which is impressive.

SPEAKER_01 29:57

I worked in a grocery store when I was a teenager, and whenever we'd bump into an aisle and break some jelly, it did look like a heinous crime scene.

SPEAKER_03 30:05

Oh, that's funny. I'm curious if it's like the American jelly, like you know, what other people would call jam, I guess, or if it's just like gelatin water.

SPEAKER_01 30:15

What's the difference between jelly and jam?

SPEAKER_03 30:17

It must be jelly because jam don't shake. Yeah, so like we have jelly that's kind of like jello, right? And then we have jam that's closer to preserves, but then we also have preserves. But I think overseas, when you have jelly, it does not refer to the thing that we call jelly. It's more like jello. And then the stuff that we call jelly is jam, and then the stuff we call like jam is just preserves. I'm not even sure if that's actually accurate, but I know that we mix them up.

SPEAKER_01 30:44

Okay, so jelly is the blood, and everything else is just the same.

SPEAKER_03 30:47

Sure. Right.

SPEAKER_01 30:48

Okay, we need a grocer to uh confirm this information.

SPEAKER_03 30:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 30:52

We need a non-American to help us.

SPEAKER_03 30:54

Yeah, please, somebody who does not live in the US, tell us what jelly, jam, and preserves are.

SPEAKER_04 31:00

Okay, so back to the blood. Allegedly, preview audiences for this movie found it so gory that 25 minutes of footage was removed to make it less so. Which is like such a bummer.

SPEAKER_01 31:11

They cut the wrong 25 minutes. There's a whole 60 minutes they could have cut and still left that 25 minutes in.

SPEAKER_04 31:17

Yeah, what about the preview audiences that found this to be too boring? We made no accommodations for them.

SPEAKER_03 31:22

I would love to see a director's cut of Bram Stoker's Dracula.

SPEAKER_04 31:26

I would too, Mac, because even though this movie was never really at risk of getting an NC17 rating, they were honestly hoping for an R. Coppola and the studio actually agreed to cut some of the more ultra-gory images from the final movie, but they exist somewhere.

SPEAKER_03 31:39

They've still got the negatives. Scan them into 4K Blu-rays or whatever you gotta do. Yeah, negatives famously archive very well.

SPEAKER_01 31:45

I just want to see a fan cut of this film without all the bullshit.

SPEAKER_04 31:48

Yeah, let's cut it down to a tight 120, re-release it, make billions. What were y'all's favorite kill?

SPEAKER_03 31:53

I think my favorite kills were pretty obvious. It's the three lady fams getting axed at the end there. Rude.

SPEAKER_01 32:00

Feel sexist.

SPEAKER_03 32:01

So rude. No, because look, like, there's some pretty decent kills and everything, but he just takes them out without like it was almost apathy. He just did not care whatsoever. He was like, all right, and your heads are off.

SPEAKER_01 32:12

Okay, well, my favorite death goes to Rando Baby number one, who was one to those brides uh long before their demise.

SPEAKER_04 32:19

And mine, surprisingly, goes to Winona Ryder when she first threw herself off of that castle, like uh when she killed herself, because that was so beautiful, and I wasn't really prepared for the visual delight that I was in for yet. So seeing her like fall against that like beautifully like painted backdrop, I was like, ooh, what a beautiful way to go.

SPEAKER_01 32:39

Okay, so do you think she broke by breaking her neck, her back, or do you think she drowned? Because either way, she looked like a goddess laying there on that stone.

SPEAKER_04 32:48

No, she died beautifully and then was captured in all of those like stained glass and like ceiling works.

SPEAKER_01 32:53

Yeah, all the frescoes.

SPEAKER_04 32:55

All the frescoes, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:56

Okay, but the baby thing. It's not really a death that obviously I'm stoked about by any means, but I do think it was part of a a bigger picture that I appreciated, which was not being able to clearly discern if Jonathan's you know sight was a hallucination or if he's truly see understanding what evils befall him. And I think that was a surprising moment for me.

SPEAKER_03 33:22

See, I just thought the vampires still had a taste for veal.

SPEAKER_01 33:26

This fucking guy.

SPEAKER_03 33:27

Something about Al Dente.

SPEAKER_01 33:29

Okay, but seeing those little like squiggly arms just like code up, I just it was it was a bit much, it was a little intense, and I think that added darkness really brought a layer of depth to this movie that I think we were really missing from Keanu Ri's performance.

SPEAKER_03 33:44

I totally agree, Chris. I think it was a good intent. So like it's it's freakish, and I think when you're seeing it, you don't expect it, and you're like, no, that is not what they're actually going to do. But anytime you have vampires on screen, you're always at danger of making them seem like too nice and too loving and too like sexual, and you have to show that they're still monsters.

SPEAKER_04 34:03

And I love that.

SPEAKER_03 34:04

But talking about things to look at, the vampires themselves cool and all. The shadow work, though, was my favorite thing about this movie visually. I mean, when it comes to like shadow puppets, that was cool, but Dracula's shadow, every time he's you know thinking something, like wanting to hurt Keanu, and doesn't actually do it, every time he holds back, every time he's just an ominous presence in a room, so powerful to see that amazing shadow just doing work and in inside the inside the scene.

SPEAKER_04 34:33

That's true, Mac. It was a really great way to kind of like give us insight into his internal dialogue, monologue, internal monologue, because you really kind of get a feel for what he's actually feeling, even though he's doing something else.

SPEAKER_01 34:47

Absolutely. And I think those shadows added so much in terms of atmosphere to this movie. It felt like that game Kingdom Hearts, where you have these dark shadows that you're having to combat every step of the way. And seeing the the shadows themselves were more of a character than I think a lot of the support supporting characters in this movie were. And I think what's really cool about this movie, and again, what like really put it into solid, soft slash territory, was how impressive the lengths that they went to were to get all this achieved in camera. The setwork and the cinematic tricks of even like that point where you know Keona's character is kind of lifted into the carriage with that long arm and like the tricks they played with miniatures and perspectives and false floors with lifts. It's so impressive. And I think this movie is a really a technical masterpiece.

SPEAKER_04 35:37

Absolutely, Chris. The visuals are the best part of this movie, hands down. That's gonna be the thing we all remember uh when we look back on this movie and don't really remember why it was a reluctant slash. We'll be like, I thought that movie was good, and then like we'll watch it again and be like, oh no, wait, I remember. It was a beautiful, long, boring thing.

SPEAKER_01 35:54

Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_04 35:56

Now, when it comes to picking a favorite visual, it is very difficult. I am obsessed with the costume work, even from like the first outfit that you see Dracula in that has a very like raw, muscular, like like actual like red musculature structure to it. I don't know, it's hard to describe. You'll see it when you watch the movie, or if you've already watched it, listeners. But also the girls' outfits, every single outfit that Winona Ryder had on, except for one that we will get to a little bit later. The costuming was incredible, the set design was gorgeous, and even just like some of the small elements, like at one point when Dracula like catches her tears and they turn into diamonds, just like little tiny things that they did all throughout that really helped to create this like fantasy world. Like I was feeling this fantasy, and I'm so glad I watched this movie because of all the things I got to see.

SPEAKER_01 36:43

Turn tears into diamonds has very every kiss begins with K energy.

SPEAKER_03 36:48

Well, now it does. I think it's interesting to think about the fact that the costume designer had never seen a Dracula movie prior to being hired to make this Dracula movie. And like, how do you nail it so well without ever watching all of the vampire movies leading up to this? Maybe that's why it was so good, because it wasn't modeled after things that came before.

SPEAKER_01 37:08

Helps give that originality.

SPEAKER_04 37:09

Yeah, the level of detail that went into these costumes is so, so delicious. I hope these are like archived somewhere and are being kept very safe so that I can wear them one day.

SPEAKER_03 37:21

It's also crazy to imagine the fact that she was initially hired as the art director, but then Kapola sees some of her costume sketches and is like, No, you're doing the costumes for this film. Like, how do you do that transition? We're like, okay, I'll be the general like director in terms of art, right? And he's like, uh uh, you are so good. I need you to focus on this one thing.

SPEAKER_01 37:41

I think one of the things for me that stands out visually, aside from the absolute magnificence that was the technical prowess in this film, was how they played with the richness of its colors. And I think that's really present in my favorite scene, which was the opening. Now, the dramatics of Dracula actually stabbing a crucifix and drinking its blood, could have done without. But basically everything before that, you know, we get to the point where the narrator is saying the year is 1426, Constantinople had fallen, and we see just this red sky and some uh orange and teal hues, and we see the shadows of all these warriors and of Dracula, Prince Vlad, just absolutely massacring people. We have like those uh spears with all these dead bodies around. That was such a haunting visual with like this slow marching orchestral music. It was just really intense and powerful. And I thought this is a hell of a way to start a movie.

SPEAKER_04 38:41

Yeah, even at the very beginning, I wrote in my notes. Is this movie really good? Because it started off with such a good impression.

SPEAKER_03 38:47

I think that's that's part of like good filmmaking, is it's like good storytelling. You have to entertain them when you're you know starting out, and you have to entertain them when you're wrapping up. And the stuff in the middle can get a little, you know, whatever, as long as you have a good intro and a good e exit, if you will.

SPEAKER_04 39:00

Speaking of good intros, um, my favorite scene, obviously, is when the three hot succubus emerge from the bedding, fuck Keanu Reeves, and then eat a baby. Uh, you get everything there. You get gorgeous women, gorgeous costumes, there's a fake nipple. Um, at one point there's like a conjoined spider bitch that I was really feeling. Uh, and that whole thing, I was like, who are these girls? And then when they came back later, I was like, oh yeah, we're not done with them. Thank God.

SPEAKER_01 39:28

You know, they consulted an actual magician to achieve the work of them being lifted and raised from the bed.

SPEAKER_04 39:35

Oh, it was beautifully done. I do not know how they did that, but Freddie Kruger wishes.

SPEAKER_03 39:39

Well, now I don't know what to say because Chris picked the same scene that I had picked because it's so good. And specifically though, because I'll I'll go in more detail because the the entire intro scene is fantastic, but the like shadow kind of puppet work we get with the whole battle scene is my favorite scene. So when we get into that view where you can't really tell if, you know, is it all live actors? And you start looking, and you're like, okay, there's obviously like 2D puppets of shadow being used here. I would honestly enjoy watching an entire movie made like that for Dracula. I don't even need all of the real humans in it.

SPEAKER_01 40:15

I don't know if I could do it. I don't know if I could do it. It looked dope, but if I if I did have an entire movie like this, it could not be the same runtime as this movie.

SPEAKER_03 40:23

Oh no, I'm imagining a type like 120 for sure. Um, but I know that they originally wanted to make something that was much smaller scale, but they didn't want these massive sets, and they wanted to use kind of like the Mandalorian did where you have like these kind of fake sets that you're filming in where everything's kind of small and you can really focus on the people. And then of course the studios were like, uh-uh, you gotta spend major money on the set design. You gotta have some really amazing sets. And I'm kind of glad that they that they pushed them into that. It would have been a very different film, but I would like to see that film as well.

SPEAKER_01 40:55

I think the energy of that opening scene with that battle, it gives a very stage play vibe, right? And I think that's the obviously what the original vision was, but I don't know if I could fully dig a movie that was just that. I'm so glad that was the opening and and the styling of it. But as long and arduous as this movie was, I'm really glad it went the way it did in terms of its visuals. I'm thinking even the way they achieved the the no reflection, uh, how they were able to superimpose several shots on top of each other to create these really eerie feelings. There's a point where the two girls are looking up into the sky as a storm is rolling in and we subtly see Dracula's eyes, and to think that's all done in camera is just outrageous.

SPEAKER_03 41:41

I think if if you have to pick a you know a second favorite, when Keanu rolls up to the castle and finally meets Dracula in that you know first part of the movie there, that whole like that whole series of events is insane and it gets more insane by the minute. But just the scene where he's helping him shave has so much tension built in. And it's kind of crazy that he's like licking the razor.

SPEAKER_01 42:04

Erotic tension, let's be clear.

SPEAKER_03 42:06

Oh, it's very erotic. It's very much like he's trying to assess Keanu and see is uh he's gonna go for this or not.

SPEAKER_04 42:13

If we're picking second favorite scenes as well, I would like to select any scene that had Lucy in it, specifically when we first get to meet her, and then she has her party where all of her gentlemen callers are coming to visit. I thought she was a really great offset to the stoic performance given by Winona Ryder. She was kind of like bubbly and like, I live life care free because I'm so much richer than you. Isn't it fun to be friends with me? And I was like, it does seem fun, Lucy. And obviously, she was my favorite character in the whole movie.

SPEAKER_01 42:42

And Lucy does bring all the boys to the yard.

SPEAKER_04 42:45

She did, and she got to pick which one she liked, and she picked the hot one, which I loved for her.

SPEAKER_01 42:49

Lucy was a great part of this movie. I think Lucy as a vampire was also unexpectedly amazing.

SPEAKER_05 42:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:57

I wish we had gotten more from her. I loved the dynamic of their friendship. I loved how she was pushing uh, you know, why Winona Rider to be a lot more carefree, a lot more fun, to not live by the repressed standards that Victorian women were. I absolutely loved her energy. And I think when we get another adaptation, I don't know if it'll happen in the one that we're referencing earlier in the scoring piece, but if we get another adaptation of this adaptation, I think Lucy deserves better.

SPEAKER_04 43:26

I think I was really pleased with how much Lucy we got. I didn't expect her to go full vampire and then get like a white couture look that she like lies back down and oh wait, hold on. Can we talk about her glass casket?

SPEAKER_01 43:38

Very snow white.

SPEAKER_04 43:39

Oh my god. Everything that they gave her. I was like, yes, yes, this is exactly what I was thinking we should do with her.

SPEAKER_01 43:45

I could have done without the werewolf ravishing though.

SPEAKER_04 43:48

Oh my god, wait, I love that. When she's like running through like the hedge maze in her long red chiffon nightgown. The werewolf was also a vampire. Was that not Dracula?

SPEAKER_01 43:57

It was Dracula, yes.

SPEAKER_04 43:58

Okay. In my mind, it took me. Me forever to understand that because as we know, vampires and werewolves have to be mutually exclusive these days.

SPEAKER_03 44:05

I think you're too hung up on Twilight. The rules of vampires prior to Twilight were very different. Apparently so.

SPEAKER_01 44:11

Well, there's also the rules of Underworld. Lycanthropes and vampires were very separate.

SPEAKER_03 44:16

That's true. That's true. And well, what was interesting to me is like there's you know, Kiano's reference to um the people that are helping Dracula, the people around the castle who are like guarding him with their lives, like were they not werewolves? Were they not werewolf familiars? I thought they were slaves, zombie slaves.

SPEAKER_01 44:34

I think it's more so that Dracula controls all manner of beast. That's why he could also turn into rats.

SPEAKER_03 44:41

That's true. And that also remind reminds me of what uh what we do in the shadows, the TV show. Bats. Bats and rats and vapors and all that, all that stuff. It's great. Lasting impact on vampire film.

SPEAKER_01 44:53

Okay, so rats, bats, werewolves. Obviously, he has range, but I think one of the things that really stuck out to me in a in a negative way before I get into the rest of the praise for him. I didn't like the dramatic theatrics of Jonathan giving a light chuckle and then he's just like grabbing a sword and all up in his face, like, this is no laughing manner. It was just very sudden and did not feel like a great performance. It didn't feel so sudden and and sharp. It felt like you are a senile old man.

SPEAKER_04 45:27

That was one of the first scenes of many where I was very confused and did not feel like I understood what was happening.

SPEAKER_03 45:33

You always imagined Dracula to just be cool about everything, like nothing would faze him because he's been around for like forever.

SPEAKER_01 45:40

You would think, but I do appreciate the emotions that we get from him later on. Not the hysterics we get when Jonathan pisses him off, but rather seeing him as a compassionate, feeling being, you know, crying when he sees her face for the first time in forever, and then later on when she stands him up. I didn't like the look of his like deformed vampire face crying in that room with the candles. But I think the expression of that emotion was really cool, and it added a depth to Dracula that could I could really appreciate.

SPEAKER_03 46:17

And it pays off. It pays off in the end because you might imagine you know you finally make it to the very end, and he seems like he's dying that she's just gonna like cut off his head to put him out of his misery. But you know, their their eternal love just brings them together and he asks for mercy and he seems relieved in the end.

SPEAKER_01 46:34

Can we agree that Jonathan was a cook?

SPEAKER_03 46:37

Yes, 100%.

SPEAKER_01 46:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 46:39

Yeah, I think so. Also, how did he gray so quickly? What was that about?

SPEAKER_01 46:43

And then degrade at the end of the movie. There's that one last shot of him, and his hair was no longer gray. Yeah, I was like, did I miss like a time lapse that occurred? It was the stress. So this movie takes place from May to November, and it doesn't feel like that. It feels like a solid 30 days.

SPEAKER_03 47:00

Oh, absolutely. I actually didn't realize it took that long. I thought it was just over the month that he was there and then got free and then came back.

SPEAKER_01 47:07

You would think. And yet here we are.

SPEAKER_04 47:10

I also thought for sure he died when he like fell that huge distance and then somehow like made his way to a convent.

SPEAKER_01 47:17

I wish he did. There was apparently supposed to be a scene planned, but never actually put into practice and not filmed, where uh Dr. Seward and Lord Arthur were gonna find the dead bodies of Jonathan Harker, Quincy, and Van Helsing, and they were going to be impaled on posts before the final showdown. And I would have loved that.

SPEAKER_03 47:38

Speaking of Van Helsing, I have mixed feelings because as a character, he makes a couple jokes that I know Chris found funny and Paris kind of glossed over, but he could have done so much more in this movie. He was introduced maybe too late, or maybe we just like rushed through his everything that he does on scene, but other scenes he just sent kind of seems useless in a way.

SPEAKER_01 48:01

Okay, Paris. The the jokes that I found funny.

SPEAKER_03 48:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 48:04

There's a point where he asks for some postmortem knives. The doctor's like, an autopsy on Lucy? And then he says, No, no, no, no, no, not exactly. I just want to cut off her head and take out her heart.

SPEAKER_04 48:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 48:15

Now if that wasn't it for you?

SPEAKER_04 48:17

I didn't recognize that that was a joke.

SPEAKER_01 48:19

Oh, well, it wasn't really a joke. It just was hilarious because he was so like abrupt. The timing was funny. Yes. There's a part where Mina and Jonathan were at dinner, and Mina's asking, How did Lucy die? Was she in great pain? And he says, Yeah, she was in great pain. Then we cut off her head and drove a steak through her heart and burned it, and then she found peace. It was just very like matter-of-fact. It's funny when you say it. Thanks. It was very matter-of-fact and objective and scientific and just so nonchalant. And it's like the horrific way that this is being delivered to this woman's best friend who's grieving her loss is just fucking hilarious. Leslie Nielsen was in a parody of Dracula, and I feel like Anthony Hopkins brought in those two moments a little bit of that energy into this film.

SPEAKER_03 49:06

100% appreciated.

SPEAKER_04 49:08

Since we've all slashed this movie, I think we can take some time to really rail against the bad things in it. One, I feel like Dracula was the worst part of this movie.

SPEAKER_00 49:19

Really?

SPEAKER_04 49:20

The design of the character, the performance, pretty much everything he did. I wasn't here for it. Okay, but wait, but not as bad as whoever that character was that lived in the jail cell.

SPEAKER_01 49:32

Yes, Renfield.

SPEAKER_04 49:33

Cut that out. Every single scene with that character, cut it.

SPEAKER_01 49:36

Not even a little bit.

SPEAKER_04 49:38

What was the purpose of that character?

SPEAKER_01 49:39

He was the harbinger of doom.

SPEAKER_04 49:41

Put that on a resume.

SPEAKER_03 49:43

I actually don't know what purpose he served.

SPEAKER_01 49:45

So he's the familiar. He's like, you know, making all the arrangements and shit. Obviously, he gets imprisoned for being a madman when he gets back. He's the predecessor to Jonathan going over there. He kind of like sets the stage and creates a need for Jonathan to be there. Now, in the original book, that's not a thing. That's he's just like fucking added here for complexity and just forewarning and being spooky, I guess. I think there are a lot of things that are wrong with him for sure. But I have a few things that piss me off more, which was one, the way the music hits when they're chasing Dracula's carriage, his little hand just popping out of the s his ancestral soil. They're racing against the sunset, the music kicks in, and there's like a little pew gunshot. It feels so western and so out of nowhere, and I hated it so much.

SPEAKER_04 50:33

It gave me Star Wars energy, actually.

SPEAKER_01 50:35

Okay, did it give you solo a Star Wars story energy? Because that would have been more appropriate. It's a Western Star Wars film.

SPEAKER_04 50:42

Maybe.

SPEAKER_01 50:43

There's a point where young Dracula is in London and everything has this like sepia tone, and it's supposed to be it looks like a little bit like disjointed and skippy, you know, with frame rates and all that. It's supposed to look like old film. That was really weird. I didn't like that. It slows back down into like a hey, we're here now, this is the scene that's unfolding before us. But that was like a really weird stylistic choice that I didn't think they need to make at all. And then last but not least, aside from County Ruby's performance, which I I say again is the worst part of this film, Jonathan and Mina are kissing, and they have the most passionate sloppy case kisses that I just can't stand. Like that's an energy I don't like. But the fucking peacock tail sliding in and just covering up the screen, so dramatic, and it added a level of whimsy and comedy that I don't think was quite appropriate for that moment.

SPEAKER_04 51:33

Oh my god, wait, I liked it. And I thought that that was Dracula as a peacock, and it showed that he was watching them as he like spread his tail.

SPEAKER_01 51:41

That's hilarious. What a compliment of a stretch.

SPEAKER_04 51:44

Well, don't you think though? Because like if he were to be any animal, which he was many animals, he would be like um an animal whose male of the species is very flamboyant and over the top.

SPEAKER_01 51:53

Sure, but he was still in Transylvania at this point.

SPEAKER_04 51:56

But then it also like focused on the eyes of the peacock feathers, so like he was watching them.

SPEAKER_01 52:01

Yeah, sure. But also he was in Transylvania.

SPEAKER_04 52:04

I don't know why this so seamlessly fell into place in my mind.

SPEAKER_01 52:07

I don't I don't know. I don't know. Uh if he were a peacock, he'd be a scraggly haired peacock because he was a scraggly haired werewolf.

SPEAKER_03 52:16

That's true. He was also a werewolf with like a bat face. So that was kind of weird. He was like an ugly werewolf.

SPEAKER_01 52:22

Everything about him was unfortunate.

SPEAKER_05 52:24

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04 52:24

Absolutely. I don't think anything was a bigger disappointment to me, though, than these wedding looks we got. Of all the incredible costumes that I was seeing, I was like, oh, they're gonna get married, fantastic. Let's see the wedding look. And they were terrible. Not terrible in any other movie, but compared to the level of giving that they were giving in this movie, they were a super big letdown.

SPEAKER_01 52:47

It's because they weren't meant to be married because he was, you know, choosing to marry her in a response to his trauma and just wanting to lock her down, and uh nothing spells doom in a disastrous way to start a marriage like that.

SPEAKER_04 53:00

And then also just like drinking that wine through a veil. Yeah, what was that? I don't know. Like everyone noticed that, right?

SPEAKER_03 53:06

Yeah. That's not a thing, is it?

SPEAKER_01 53:08

I mean, it goes through their holes.

SPEAKER_03 53:10

I think the most unfortunate thing about this movie though is the runtime and the pacing. That to me was the worst part of the movie. I legit fell asleep so many times, and I get it. I was tired from work, but it was early enough that I wouldn't have fallen asleep. If I was watching TV, I would have been wide awake, so I don't understand it. Like, I think it it's just got this like pacing that kind of calms you down too much when you're watching it, and then the runtime just keeps going, and you end up like in a trance. You're like hypnotized by the movie.

SPEAKER_01 53:42

Which is honestly dangerously a good thing to say, so maybe don't give it that much of a compliment because it just failed this execution. Let's not let's not say that it hypnotizes the way Dracula was hoping to.

SPEAKER_04 53:54

I feel like it's a combination of like not being that invested in the characters of the story and also not really fully understanding what you're seeing or like what's being said because of the accent work, where you're kind of it's very easy for the brain to be like, uh, I'm good.

SPEAKER_01 54:10

Okay, so wait, which had worse accents? Bromstoker's Dracula from 1992, specifically when Ona Red and Keanu Reeves, or the 1666 for your street.

SPEAKER_03 54:20

Actually, this movie did, Dracula did. Yeah, this one.

SPEAKER_01 54:22

Feels bad. Shouldn't be the case. If you were to put that on paper and say these relative unknowns from a Netflix uh horror trilogy suddenly go back to 1666 to seem real witchy, or this A-lest uns ensemble of stars, which one has better accents? You wouldn't expect it to be the 1666.

SPEAKER_04 54:41

Fear Street at some point you stopped noticing it. Right. This we never stop noticing it.

SPEAKER_01 54:45

It's just so painfully there. You're just always aware of it.

SPEAKER_03 54:49

You kind of expect him to say something like, He was drinking my blood, dudes, because it just doesn't like line up with him at all.

SPEAKER_04 54:56

My boyfriend made that same joke, Mac. There's specifically a line towards the beginning where he's like, I need to go see Dracula, but it was like very that tone.

SPEAKER_01 55:04

The what kills me though is that he's so soft-spoken, not in like a gentle kind of way, but in an overacting kind of way.

SPEAKER_03 55:11

They have the perfect actor in this movie who would have done better than Keanu did, and it's it's our boy Carrie.

SPEAKER_01 55:17

Kyolies, absolutely. He absolutely should have done this. There are a little as you wish in there.

SPEAKER_03 55:23

I can imagine the range he would have brought to the role, the emotion. We would have actually cared about one of the main characters way more.

SPEAKER_01 55:30

We got more fucking range in the moment that he, as Lord Arthur, is staring at her body and telling him to just call Van Helsing and spare no expense. And you see how he walks in with this, like, oh, let's go have a look at her, and then he's just staring, he looks exactly the same, but you notice there's a subtle shift of like I realize how gravely how grave and severe the situation is. And he barely moves his facial muscles. What the fuck is Keon Reeves' excuse?

SPEAKER_04 55:59

Yeah, he definitely gave a solid performance. This was actually the movie that made me realize that the hot guy from Robin Hood, Men and Tights, was the guy in Saw.

SPEAKER_01 56:07

It frustrates me to no end that this is how you discovered that.

SPEAKER_04 56:11

I know, and I feel like you guys probably were talking about this on the Saw episode, and it like it just wasn't registering in my brain.

SPEAKER_01 56:18

Wait until you see him in the 2019 Black Christmas.

SPEAKER_04 56:21

I guess I will. Just gonna throw this out there. Maybe someone's worst part, one of my best parts, when Lucy is a vampire and she like goes down to her crypt and all the guys are like hiding, and then she realizes she's not alone, and she just like drops that child on the stone floor like it's nothing. But just the way she had no regard for that child's life, she just dropped it like, oh shit, I'm caught.

SPEAKER_03 56:42

That was comedy. But one of the best parts was her look after being turned into a vampire. Yes. Every look she had was so good. I think after all we've said though, I would still watch this again. And I know it's been probably a decade since the last time I watched it, and maybe I would wait another decade, but I would see it again.

SPEAKER_01 57:03

Absolutely not. I intend to watch genuinely any other Dracula Property besides this movie. Again, it is what it is. It's cool, it's iconic. I seen it once, don't need to see it again.

SPEAKER_04 57:16

I kind of feel the same, Chris. This movie's definitely iconic. I'm super glad that I did watch it. I've already recommended it to a couple people that haven't seen it. I want to want to watch this movie again because it was so delicious on my eyeballs. But unless it's like a better cut or just a sequence of gifs, I think I'm gonna have to pass.

SPEAKER_01 57:36

Well, speaking of passing, let's see how well you fare in fact or fiction, flying solo.

SPEAKER_03 57:41

Oh god help me. Alright, Paris, I hope you're ready. Number one. Gary Oldman truly hated wearing the creature makeup and opted to have a double where the wolf get up for some time because he could just couldn't stand it anymore.

SPEAKER_04 57:54

That's obviously fiction, Mac, because one, Gary Oldman loves getting into costumes for his roles. Two, I bet he did have a double for some reason, but it's not the reason you said go.

SPEAKER_03 58:03

Oh shut up. You just read everything before I I put this together, didn't you? Because yeah, it is a fiction. A double was used for some of it because he had an allergy to the makeup. He didn't love wearing all the stuff all the time, but he did like help design or make some of it.

SPEAKER_01 58:18

It's because he's serious black. How is he more handsome as serious black than as a young man?

SPEAKER_04 58:23

Okay, but wait, let the record show there's no way I can cheat because I still don't know where you put these things in notion. That's true. There's like certain things you guys have in Notion where I'm like, I don't know where they are.

SPEAKER_01 58:32

It's hidden from you, actually. It's only shared between Mac and I.

SPEAKER_04 58:35

Okay, cool.

SPEAKER_03 58:35

So Indeed. I did not cheat. Well, also, Gary Oldman, like within a decade in various movies, can play somebody who's like 40, 50, 25, or somewhere in his 30s. He's I don't know how he does it. He's a chameleon. Number two. That massive five head that he sports was not by design, but occurred as a result of the bald cat being used to outfit him for that super cool wig. That feels like fiction.

SPEAKER_04 59:00

It felt very deliberate as a choice. Especially like with like the ears situation that was going on.

SPEAKER_03 59:05

Yeah, you're right. It's fiction. So the front of his hairline was shaved. One, to make him look more like Vlad the Impaler, and two, also to, you know, work better with his makeup. Not the hairline.

SPEAKER_01 59:15

The hairline.

SPEAKER_04 59:16

Oh, it's precious.

SPEAKER_01 59:17

Listen, all of us who have Widow's Peaks have uh made the mistake of trying to maintain that Widow's peak. And uh it seems like he went a little bit too far this time.

SPEAKER_04 59:27

Just kept going. It was giving very like it before it.

SPEAKER_01 59:30

Actually, this was after it.

SPEAKER_03 59:32

I forgot it was a remake. And number three, Keanu Reeves was satisfied with his performance. And after a few years, he said, you know, it's imperfect, but he was still satisfied with his work.

SPEAKER_04 59:44

Ooh, that's tough, Mac. Um it's already been two fictions. Would it be a third fiction? I'm gonna say fiction. He knew he did bad from the jump.

SPEAKER_03 59:54

You are correct. I don't know about from the jump, but um a couple years later he did reflect on it, and he was dissatisfied. You know, he was not happy. He was super popular at the time, and he had just finished like filming multiple things back to back, and he was exhausted and was not putting in his best effort. Honestly, we all give counterreaves a pass on this.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:14

At least I do.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:15

I do not.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:16

He did enough for it to be serviceable, and I'm like, eh.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:20

You made too much money on this movie, sir. There are people who work far harder and make far less money than the fucking laxadaisical effort you put in.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:29

Like all the gays that did the sets and costumes.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:32

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:33

I mean, Gary Oldman literally brought in a singing coach so that he could learn how to lower his voice in octave to sound more like Dracula. Fact. No, that is not a fact or fiction. That's just showing that more people, you know, other people put in more work than Keanu did. It's just sad. But last one of the night, Gary Oldman was convinced this movie was worth his time when he realized he'd be able to say the words, I've crossed oceans of time to find you.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:57

Oh my god, this is so tricky, and I could have a perfect run. Ugh, that seems so random to be fiction. I'm gonna say fact. Oh my god, you got it. It was a fact. Oh my god, this is unprecedented. Maybe I know too much about Gary Oldman and his psychosis.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:14

Maybe you just usually know the answer, but you give in to peer pressure with Ryan and Alexis.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:19

I think that's what it is. Well, let the record show on this good day, I Is there a prize? What is this called? No, I don't know. Get me out of here. Let's wrap it up.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:28

You actually win uh at least three internet points. Oh good. I can use those to pay my Xfinity bill. And that's been Factor Fiction.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:36

Well, there you have it, folks. Brom Stoker's Dracula from 1992 has earned a reluctant universal slash, and we've had a lot to talk about here. We've had a lot of robust discussion, dragging and praising this movie simultaneously, which is a really interesting thing to do here. But we want to know what you think and where you stand. Keep in mind there are a number of ways you can reach out to us, starting with our website, hackerslash.live, or on our social media accounts, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:01

Or if you prefer not to send your feedback in via quill and paper, you can reach out to us at our hackerslash hotline. You can leave us a voicemail at 757-606-0128, or visit hackerslash.com.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:20

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SPEAKER_01 1:02:28

We'll see you next time, folks, and remember, civilization and civilization have advanced together.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:33

It's brilliant. Bye.