Customer Reviews

Dracula The Un-Dead

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Being a fan of the original, I was very excited to hear of this book's release. It even Looked like the old gothic horror story, and to have been written by a Stoker! Wow, it seemed too good to be true; and as I soon found out...it is exactly that. The story, though well told, resembles not at all to it's predecessor. Instead of battling a vicious Dracula as the original portrayed, the sequel actually goes back and re-writes the details of the original. What do I mean by this? For one, in the original Dracula forced Mina, against her will, to drink his blood. This was done solely out of revenge, to get back at her and the rest of the hunters for trying to kill him. This account was replaced in the sequel with a story that told of Mina's affair with Dracula, and her undying love for him that still haunted her 25 years later. Really? This story seems like more of a sequel to Coppala's film: Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Not to mention that in a flashback sequence, the entire story of Dracula's death is retold in a completely different way than the way the original tells of it. The entire story pays no homage to the original classic, and flat out contradicts the account that the original tells. It makes me wonder if the two authors actually read the original at all. As far as I am concerned, this book has no place beside of Stoker's classic. I have never seen an author go back and re-write the details of the original story in order to provide a basis for the poor story of the sequel.

A few years ago, the spoof metal band Bad News recorded a cover of Bohemian Rhapsody. It was a sort of sub-Spinal Tap comedy effort and the point of the joke was to be deliberately awful, and it reached a gruesome crescendo with the guitar solo - so wincingly bad that connoisseurs instantly recognised it as the product of an exceptionally talented guitarist: no ordinary strummer could mangle something quite that badly. And, surprise, surprise, the Bad News recording was overseen by none other than Queen's Brian May.

The reason I mention it is because I can't think of any other sensible explanation for the publication of this grim little book - the Brian May in this case being not Bram, but his great grand-nephew - yes, quite - Dacre. Perhaps the Stoker literary genius is, like its creation, immortal, and lives on in the frame of his diluted bloodline. Unlikely, and it would only make sense if said great grand-nephew - apparently a onetime Canadian modern pentathlete, latterly of Aiken, South Carolina - were also possessed of an unholy, un-American sense of irony, and minded to dreadfully mock his more famous Irish ancestor the way Brian May mocked his own guitar solo.

As I say, unlikely.

Mr Stoker, junior, has co-opted (or more likely, been co-opted *by*) a self-described "well-known Dracula Historian" called Ian Holt. Despite his publisher's claims to the contrary, Mr Holt's renown seems largely to have escaped Google, unless he is the same Ian Holt who scripted Dr. Chopper, a 2005 straight-to-video release whose IMDB plot summary is: "Five young friends head out to the country for a weekend at the family cabin and run afoul of a group of motorcycle riding madwomen led by the sadistic, knife-wielding plastic surgeon Dr. Fielding."

Having read Dracula: The Undead, I have a sneaking suspicion it just might be the same Ian Holt.

Now if the sound of Dr. Chopper makes your heart sink, then look away now, for that is, at best, the level of wit and sophistication you will find in "Dracula: The Undead". This is a toweringly awful book: a veritable tour de force of witless, guileless, inanity - so bad that, perversely, it is entertaining in manner of an Ed Wood movie; I found myself boxing on, propelled by the simple disbelief that anyone gormless enough to write this mush had the commercial acumen, tenacity and perseverance to bring it to market. Somehow, I spent money on this thing, after all, even if it was only £4.

It's also outrageously cynical: I dare say Dacre Stoker was well rewarded for lending his family's name and imprimatur to this project, but in no other respect does this novel even faintly resemble the fictional universe, style, world-view, sophistication, or literary outlook of Bram Stoker's original. This book lacks even a smidgen of feel or sympathy for the original, or even the genre from which it comes, however hackneyed that may now be. I'm giving Dacre Stoker the benefit of the doubt that he didn't *really* contribute to this novel (Bram certainly didn't: the suggestion that Undead's storyline was somehow crafted out of notes left by Bram Stoker is disingenuous in the extreme), but even if he did, consider how interested you'd be in "MacBeth II" written by a distant descendent, now resident in Aiken, Carolina, of William Shakespeare.

As it happens, I had re-read Bram's Stoker's Dracula a fortnight ago, so it was fresh in my mind. While it's a little flabby in places, in the main Dracula is beautifully staged and elegantly written with some devastatingly good passages, and manages its horror through unease: being epistolatory, the novel unfolds through contemporaneous records of protagonists who didn't know what is going on: there is therefore a creeping, implied, dread. The horror, and submerged sexuality, is almost all implied, and mostly metaphorical. Scarcely a drop of blood is shed in Bram Stoker's novel.

Would that any of this were true of Dracula: The Undead. Fat chance. Lesbian sadomasochistic murder - I'm not kidding - commences on page 14, and after a hiatus of leaden plot exposition (and shameless revision) for the benefit of those who might have forgotten what happened in the original Dracula, this sequel settles into a lumpen, tepid bloodbath of gore, impalation, amputation, disembowelling, eye-put-outing, flesh-charring, and so on (quickly it becomes a blur) thereafter. I'm not being prudish or squeamish here - there are books which I've found so repellent I couldn't go on (Justine, for example), and this wasn't one of them - my objection is simply that this is poor literature: dull, monotonous, unimaginative, derivative and devoid of narrative interest or significant characterisation. It pales in comparison with the Gothic beauty and psychological horror of Stoker's original. While professing undying love and scholastic commitment, it is transparently clear that neither author has the remotest conception of what is so good about Bram Stoker's novel.

It's also clumsily written and miserably sub-edited. Arch-villain Countess Bathory appears to be able to move instantly between London and Paris (and between Highgate and Hampstead cemeteries, though I think that may just be poor sub-editing) and at one point is given a superhero-like power of flight, which she uses to instantly fly from Paris to London, whereupon she boards a horse-drawn carriage and heads, in a hurry, for Whitby in Yorkshire (being just as far from London (as the vampire flies) as Paris!) When she gets there the great vamp-on-vamp showdown (!) is conducted via - and how I wish I were making this up - a sword fight. Honestly. And best not talk about the "Darth Vader" moment. Yes, you read that right.

I could go on. You sense the authors very definitely had a screenplay in mind, with plenty of CGI, wire work and Underworld-style visuals - a big budget follow up to Dr. Chopper, perhaps. Heaven help us if that's the case - though you have to wonder whether it's not publisher's hype - or wishful thinking - to shift some copies of this horrid book.

In the mean time, I leave the final word - out of context, I grant you - to the authors themselves:

"If there were to be any truth to Stoker's novel it would have to be where no sunlight could ever reach".

You can stick this, in other words, where the sun don't shine.

Olly Buxton

Out of all classic literary characters, the one that inspires the most sequels, adaptations, reimaginings and general bastardizations is Count Dracula.

And while most of the sequels focusing on the legendary count are bad, "Dracula the Un-Dead" is in a class of putrid wretchedness all its own. You would think that the great-nephew of a classic author would try to produce a suitable sequel that reflected some of the original's glory, but Dacre Stoker -- with the help of screenwriter Ian Holt -- seems more interested in raining contempt and mockery down on the original "Dracula."

Twenty-five years after the events of "Dracula," Quincey Harker is an aspiring young actor who is taken under the wing of the Romanian actor Basarab (you get three guesses who this is, and the first two don't count). Unfortunately, around this time John Seward is brutally killed while trying to kill the depraved vampire Elizabeth Bathory -- and other people who once fought Dracula also start dying at the same time. And during all this, Jack the Ripper shows signs of reappearing, which Inspector Cotswold thinks may be connected to Van Helsing.

Upon learning of his mother's past -- how she slept with Dracula and is still obsessed with him -- Quincey vows to take revenge on the vampire for his attacks on the Harker family. But it turns out that all the remaining survivors of that group are... pathetically decrepit in their own particular ways. Bathory is planning to take her ultimate revenge on Dracula... or the people who tried to kill him. I'm not quite sure. Anyway, Quincey Harker may be the only thing that can save the world... and since he's a blithering idiot, God help the world.

If I had to say that "Dracula The Un-Dead" was a sequel to anything, it wouldn't be Bram Stoker's classic novel. There's pretty much not a trace of it in this novel. Instead, Dacre Stoker's sequel resembles the wretchedly bastardized Francis Ford Coppola movie -- Dracula's a good guy (thus rendering the whole original novel POINTLESS), he and Mina are soulmates, and there's lots of flashy sex'n'violence (down to Mina being raped by Bathory). It's pretty clear from reading this that Stoker detests the original novel.

Nor does the writing make up for the book's lack of respect -- there are a couple messy side-plots about Bram Stoker trying to get a "Dracula" play going, and Inspector Cotswold's hunt for Jack the Ripper. Either could have been easily cut, and it might have made the story less long-winded. While Stoker and Holt do manage a decent worksmanlike writing style, they linger too long on Bathory's sexual antics (including lesbian incest and S&M murder) and throw in some ham-handed "twists" that are visible miles away (two words: "Star Wars"). And the dialogue? It's a joke ("Didn't your mistress warn you? I'm Dracula's adulterous whore!").

Perhaps the worst sign of Stoker's disgust for his great-uncle's work is what he does to the band of beloved characters -- Seward is a pathetic morphine addict, Harker an embittered alcoholic who visits prostitutes, Holmwood is a selfish coward, Van Helsing a crazy old traitor, and Mina has become a demi-vampire nympho who lost her virginity to Dracula (don't ask me how) and is obsessed with her "dark prince." Quincey seems more like a whiny teenager (complete with "I'll show you!") than a grown man.

Stoker even spits on his great-uncle by portraying the original Stoker as a feeble desperate old coot, whose classic novel is "lies" and "a fanciful mockery of the truth." The "truth," of course, is supposedly what Stoker himself writes, and it seems entirely conjured for a big flashy blockbuster.

As for Dracula, he's basically reduced to a pallid supporting role in his own story, and given a goopy romantic "love" for Mina. In other words, he has none of the deliciously exalted evil and cruelty that makes him so alluring. Instead, Stoker lavishes attention on the lesbian sadist Bathory, who for some reason wants to kill Dracula because he's he's a "champion of God." Or maybe he dumped her. Her motivations really don't make much sense.

Most people write sequels to books that they love, but Dacre Stoker wrote "Dracula the Un-Dead" as a sequel to a book that he seems to hate. It's a long, boring literary rape of a beloved classic, and a pretty dull book besides.

I was excited about this book because it was supposedly written by a descendent of Bram Stoker so I expected a respectful, thoughtful sequel that would be true to the spirt of the original source.

I could not have been more wrong! This book was so awful, so terribly written and had such a ridiculous plot that I could barely even finish it! I must admit I pretty much skimmed the final third - before throwing the horrible thing across the room in disgust.

This book is just awful - it contradicts and even re-writes Stoker. The treatment of the original characters is disrespectful and an insult to Stoker's intent. The writer tries to bring historic characters into the mix throwing in everything from Elisabeth Bathory (who here is a true vampire), Jack the Ripper, even (and I saw this one coming a mile away), The Titanic!

Dacre was obviously influenced by Francis Ford Coppola's film, "Bram Stoker's Dracula" and that could have been a good thing, except that the writer handles plot and character development so ineptly that the whole story falls flat and is anything but sexy. Coppola's version may not have been true to the letter of the original book, but it did retain the original spirit, was a fun adaptation and was intelligently executed on the screen. Of course Coppola played up the love angle between Dracula and Mina, which was NOT in Stoker. But that was Coppola's take on the tale, we've been there and done that now - one expected this book, written by a Stoker, to go back to basics and evoke Stoker's original vision. But no - 'Ol Dacre has to go and handle the whole thing so incompetently that there are not even any entertaining passages, and at no point is the reader truly engaged on any level. It is impossible to feel anything toward the unlikable characters this fool of a writer throws at us.

One thing that really disgusted me was that Dacre perpetuates the silly notion that sunlight is fatal to vampires, a concept not in the original novel, nor in any other vampire fiction or mythology until Hollywood invented the notion! To Coppola's credit, he went back to Bram Stoker on this concept - in his film, the Van Helsing character explains in a voice-over, "contrary to some beliefs, vampires, like all nocturnal creatures, can move about by day, though it is not their natural time and their powers are weak." But 'ol Dacre ignores his grandfather and all vampire mythology and has the vampires bursting into flame in the sunlight! Yawn!

Maybe the silliest aspect to the book, besides the whole Bathory vs. Dracula angle which makes no sense whatsoever, is making Bram Stoker a character alongside his fictional characters. I mean, WTF?! And the author does nothing interesting with this concept at all! That whole subplot is just unbelievably silly and ludicrous! In fact the whole damn book is a sloppy, unfocused, infuriating mess that had me laughing out loud at how ridiculous the author's little twists were as the lame "plot" stumbled along! It was also over the top gory and mean spirited in how it dispatched some of Stoker's original characters.

Avoid this mess at all costs! Will we ever get a worthy sequel to Dracula? It is seeming more and more unlikely! I hated this book - it was a complete waste of money and I regret buying it and supporting this writer and his silly book! Don't make the same mistake!

Unspeakably bad. Absolutely terrible. Dacre Stoker should be banned from all future reunions of the Stoker family. Words can hardly express how just goddam awful this book is.

Clearly this simply dreadful book was intended as screenplay. If it ever makes the screen, don't see it. If the novel is in your bookshop, don't buy it. (Call me: I'll send you mine--please!) This book, this idea, the whole concept is a desecration of Bram Stoker's masterpiece. Just unimaginably bad.

This abomination is written by two individuals who mistook the film "Bram Stoker's Dracula" for the real thing. Yes, one is descended from Bram and another is a screenwriter... but this quite literally sucks. Just read the notes within to experience the cleverness they felt they enjoyed with the usage of famous actors and other names associated with Dracula over the years, all of which are neither clever or inspired. Dracula will not be recognizable from those who have read the original gothic masterpiece and Bram Stoker himself would be horrified at the complete 180 degree shift of his master vampire. This is nothing less than the first shot at making a film (the book reads much more like an overwrought movie complete with over-the-top action sequences, all male characters neutered for a post-feminist audience and the two main characters involved in lesbian rape and far too much page-and screen-time over the title character) and the mess reads like the shorthand prose that necessitates the screenwriting format but which they then tried to "expand" to make a novel of it. Eighth-grade English students have produced better material with the result that this comes off like the "fan-fiction" so prevalent in sci-fi and associated circles where the authors indulge in revisionism in order to satiate their own wishes or-as is often the case-insert a fictional version of themselves into the proceedings. It's too bad the authors took the movie "Bram Stoker's Dracula" course-as the movie was neither Bram's version or even truly Dracula. The novel has a vampire with a plan colliding with modern sensibilities (for 1897). The entire love plot for the film is NOT in the book and is indeed much more closely linked to the plot for the 1932 film of the Mummy (and has been ripped-off constantly since). Dracula is after Lucy and Mina in the novel but it is not for romantic yearnings of his long-lost love. Dracula is the novel is not a wuss (as a friend so succintly put it) but a powerful, EVIL character. Evil does not need revisionism to make us like and understand him! I can hardly wait for these authors to revisit Hitler and make him just a misunderstood artist who went astray only to have Eva Braun put on her valkyrie armor breast plate (after a lesbianic tryst with Eleanor Roosevelt) and kick Eisenhower's misguided ass out of Deustchland! That, in essence, is what these "authors" have done with Dracula. Spend the money on a real book and pick up Vince Flynn's latest or Jim Butcher's latest but avoid at all costs!

There have been a handful of sequels written to Bram Stoker's masterpiece of gothic horror since it was published in 1897, even one by Freda Warrington with the same title: "Dracula The Un-Dead". But this is the first written by a member of the Stoker family. Dacre Stoker is Bram Stoker's great-grandnephew, and Ian Holt is a screenwriter. Together they have written a sequel that stresses the terrible toll that the events of Bram Stoker's novel took on its heroes: Jack Seward is a crusading morphine addict, Arthur Holmwood in denial, Jonathan Harker an alcoholic who distrusts his eternally youthful wife Mina and alienates his son Quincey, and the fate of Count Dracula himself is uncertain. But there is a new villain on the scene who threatens the survivors of England's first battle with Dracula: a vampirized Countess Elizabeth Bathory.

Elizabeth Bathory has been associated with Count Dracula in novels and movies, because she, like the Count's real-life namesake Vlad Tepes, was a bloodthirsty noble from Eastern Europe. The Hungarian Countess is one of the first documented cases of a serial killer, having tortured and murdered hundreds of young women in her castles. In "Dracula The Un-Dead", the Bathory vampire replaces Count Dracula as the villain. Like so many "Dracula" novels, this one reconceives the events of the original novel by presenting them from a different point of view, softening its portrait of Count Dracula. This was a neat trick the first time (which might have been Fred Saberhagen's "The Dracula Tape"), but I have to say that I'm getting tired of it. I don't think anyone wants to see Dracula romanticized. It makes him dull.

Apart from that, I found "Dracula: The Un-Dead" overplotted and eventually nonsensical. The action scenes feel like they were written to maximize someone's special effects budget. Characters frequently come to startling realizations rather suddenly, that don't proceed logically from their experiences. This effectively serves as a deus ex machina, repeatedly. Quincey Harker's characterization seems more like that of a pubescent than a man of 24. The action of this novel takes place in 1912, twenty-four years after the action of Bram Stoker's "Dracula", which "actually" took place in 1893, but the authors have moved it to 1888 so that Dracula's first appearance in England coincides with Jack the Ripper's murders. On the bright side, it's well-paced, and it's essential reading for "Dracula" fans, regardless.

The book is an abomination that spits all over the original. Tripped out in forced, pointless subplots, mind-numbingly cliched "twists," stunningly bad dialogue, torture porn and homophobia, the "sequel" takes the events, characters and tone of Stoker's (the real one) Dracula and "improves" them by turning it all into formulaic trash that blatantly contradicts the very events and tenets that made the book and it's characters classic. Obviously designed to appeal to the Anne Rice/ Twilight crowd rather than fans of the original, as nearly all the events of the original are tossed out as "inaccurate." That's right, the classic that hasn't been out of print in over a century is completely wrong, and THIS is the "real" story. Please. Dacre Stoker was obviously recruited for name recognition only as I doubt this garbage would've been published otherwise.

I can't wait for a sequel to Dacre Stoker's & Ian Holt's Dracula: The Un-Dead. Though it may take another hundred years for Bellinger Stoker and Parker Stoker to raise an army of grand-nephews collaborating with Ian Holt's neighbour's aunt's godfather's sister, it will be a delight to read in their sequel how Dacre and Ian are tortured slowly to death by the resurrected Elizabeth Bathory. That would make a justified sequel for this outrage of a book.

Dacre's & Ian's Dracula: The Un-Dead is a sequel for everything else except Bram Stoker's authentic Dracula. It is incredibly shocking to read from the Afterword that these two men seriously believe to "do justice" for Bram Stoker's original book. This sequel does not only show immense disrespect to the spirit of the original book, but also treats its author Abraham Stoker in astonishingly cruel way. These guys seem to hate Bram Stoker more than Anne Rice ever did.

With her boring Eclipse and totally silly Breaking Dawn of the Twilight saga, Stephenie Meyer seems gloriously talented writer with bold originality when compared to this badly-written and poorly conceived vampire fan fiction & role-playing outrage by Ian Holt and Dacre Stoker. Fans of "Francis Ford Coppola's wet dreams and other misconceptions of Bram Stoker's Dracula" (as the movie should have been called) will love Dacre's and Ian's sequel. Those readers who really respect and love Bram Stoker's original book should be heavily warned not to touch this junk.

For the "official" sequel to Bram Stoker's classic of gothic horror, this read like truly putrid fanfic. Just horrible writing and a plot that actually steals from "The Empire Strikes Back"! I was hoping for a great, thrilling antidote to all these atrocious Young Adult vampire books out there, but this sure wasn't it. The level of the writing itself is amateurish. The authors basically ignore Bram Stoker's original narative device of telling the story through journal and diary entries, newspaper clippings, and even Dr. Seward's wax cylinder recordings. Then, they kowtow to the Anne Rice/Stephanie Meyers crowd, as well as changing some of Stoker's vampire lore to be more in line with modern reader's expectations, rather than sticking to what Stoker established. I've read other, non-"official" sequels to Dracula that were, frankly, much better than this.