#dracula: 2004

[starstrider-productions]

Starstrider Productions' next project is...

From the talented Bram Stoker, the award-nominated writer of epic science-fiction drama The Pilgrimage Saga, and the producer of The PrickwillowPapers, Starstrider Productions presents…

DRACULA: 2004

The year is 2004. Flip-phones are in vogue, MySpace has just been launched, and Britney Spears’ Toxic is top of the charts. And Castle Dracula is about to receive a young guest for dinner…

Armed with only his dictaphone, newly-minted solicitor Jonathan Harker has taken the Eurostar out of Britain and travelled to the depths of Romania, where phone service and peace of mind have become a thing of the past. But Jonathan isn’t the only one in the toils: he’s just unwittingly given a bloodsucking monster unfettered access to London’s teeming millions, and he, his friends and Mina, the love of his life, are in grave danger.

A found-footage extravaganza, Dracula: 2004 dares to ask what happens when you combine vampires and dial-up internet. Join Jonathan as he survives the work trip from hell; gossip with Mina and Lucy over Lucy’s three suitors; and meet the eccentric Van Helsing and her vampire-hunting armoury. This is a new millennium, a new age of technology, and a version of Dracula that you have never experienced before.

Care to take a bite?

Written and directed by Francesca Mylod-Ford

Produced by Maddy Searle

Music composed by Joash Kari

Cast to be revealed...

[starstrider-productions]

You are so very correct and you are going to LOVE this show!

I want to argue that Dracula is the first work of Nokiawave.

-It's heavily concerned with new technology which drives the plot: Telegrams between everyone being collated into the text, Dr Seward's audiolog on the phonograph which Mina types up, mass transit in the form of both trains and Tube, steamships (and specifically the contrast between steam and sail) and loads of minor examples.

-It's concerned with new social technologies and social change: Mina is a typist, a respectable modern job for a young middle-class woman. Jon is a clerk and is working in an exciting emerging market. Dr Seward uses all the modern methods and keeps up with theory and scientific developments. Lucy is pleased to have plenty of male friends, not just to be seeking to marry. And it contrasts this with both the "good" Old Ways - The helpful, hopeless, peasants who give Jon his anti-vampire icon, the "broad minded" but also clearly steeped in superstition Van Helsing - and the "bad" Old Ways - Obviously, Dracula and also the enslaved Roma (Who, oh god, I I have to write about them in the context of Romanian chattel slavery of Roma, which was technically abolished in stages throughout the 2nd half of the 19th century, but where emancipation came with enforced sedentarism and obligation to a landowner - And where many remained enslaved in all practical terms into the C20th, and specifically in Transylvania the effects of Maria Theresia's Four Decrees that were still in effect that meant they would both be indentured to a landowner as "new farmers" and their children would be kidnapped by the state and given to white families for "reeducation" - but most people analysing the text seem to treat them as willingly Evil Minions).

-It's full of the anxieties about what Eastern and Southern Europe will do as they "modernise and open" (ie become financially and culturally available to the West) and specifically the fear of the Rich Slavic* Oligarch (to a certain kind of British mind, anyone east of Berlin and north of Athens is Slavic, sigh) spreading their malign influence in the Capital Cities of the West. Even the touch that Dracula was once a warlord but is now a slick investor and man-about-town.

-It has lots of continent hopping, focusing on the ~local colour~ in Transylvania and the contrast between both the "superstitious" locals and the traveller who finds it all very quaint and interesting but not very serious, and between the poverty of the normal people and the wealth and seclusion of Dracula, and then likewise giving us whistle-stop tours of the interesting bits of Whitby and London, making the city as much of a character as the humans. The Westerner abroad is seen as just a natural phenomenon, but the foreigners* in Britain are notable and exotic.

- It has a mysterious superweapon/monster which is hidden around a big western capital city, where most people (and even the police and regular military) have no idea what it is and are powerless to stop it, and a lot of tension lies on the crux of "What happens if this gets out here, surrounded by all these civilians?" - In a way that treats the mythological East* as a natural place for atrocities to occur, but them happening in London is a shock.

-It has spying: Jon sneaking around the locked-up Carfax with his miniature camera, trying to take pictures to find out what Dracula is doing in there, could have absolutely been in a 1990s thriller. Likewise, meeting in Harrods to avoid suspicion because it's a plausible place for a fashionable young lady to be, surrounded by anonymising crowds.

-It has information warfare: Dracula reading up on British politics, studying maps of London, paying clerks and using shell companies to disguise his property acquisitions, and likewise the heroes using the telegram and port records and the sheer mass of paperwork generated by his activities to track Dracula, which feels like close kin to the Nokiawave staples of finding someone on cctv or by their credit card, or their car registration being flagged at a checkpoint. Jonathan lamenting the lack of an Ordnance Survey in Europe and the unmapped bits of Transylvania specifically really fits with the idea of the "Control Grid" posited by Gregory Flaxman who writes a lot about surveillance and information control in cinema.

-It has a team of both specialists and laypeople who were dragged into the action by circumstance, and much relies on their relationships. The laypeople's "unimportant" skills (Jonathan's knowledge of property and finance especially, and Mina's skills with logistics as well as her innovation and bravery in using herself as a conduit to Dracula) turn out to save the day. The team is multi-national and basically represents The Free World (TM), as well as allowing for jokes about national stereotypes.

-Mina being notably not a damsel in distress, but instead using her personal connection to the villain to absolutely ruin him in ways that nobody else could, is very much like the role of many women in Nokiawave films: She may be traumatised and in danger, more than anyone else because of the villain's obsession with her, but she's smart and deadly and willing to take risks to complete the mission.

-It ends with a massive cross-continental vehicle chase with tonnes of explosions.

[anyataylorjoys]

Richard Roxburgh as Dracula VAN HELSING (2004) dir. Stephen Sommers

[divineandmajesticinone]

VAN HELSING (2004) dir. Stephen Sommers Dracula's three brides: Aleera, Verona and Marishka

[junkfoodcinemas]

Horror Movie Villains + Iconic One Liners (part 1)

[starstrider-productions]

This week we announced our latest show, Dracula: 2004! We will be crowdfunding in April, so keep your eyes open for information on our campaign, as well as our cast reveal and merch releases!

Happy Saturday, friends! It's time for

✨Fiction Podcast Self Promo Saturday!✨

Every Saturday I invite audio drama folks to share their achievements and shout out anything they'd like to promote! My intention is to get more eyes and ears on all the awesome fiction podcasts out there, and to introduce folks to some cool new audio dramas!

If you have a podcast, a new episode, a crowdfunding campaign, casting call, or anything else audio drama related that you'd like to promote, reblog this post! I'll reblog every one I see throughout the day!

I'm still also looking to add to my list of 2025's upcoming audio drama debuts! Details on when your podcast is due to launch can be as vague or as specific as you'd like, and just 'at some point this year' is absolutely fine! I've created a page on my blog (here) which features audio dramas due to launch in 2025, which folks have told me about, or I've found information on. I'm updating and adding to this page throughout the year, and podcasts once launched will remain on the page for ease of discovery.

[ophelialoveshandsomemen]

Say what you will about Van Helsing 2004; hate it, love it, be indifferent, But the All-Hallow's masquerade ball went sooooo hard and it had zero right to do so! It's a fun, campy, monster mash movie with wonderfully dated ( and expensive) cgi and non-stop action meant to be a popcorn flick one takes out to watch around spooky season. And it has this* chef's kiss* GORGEOUS 6 minute sequence plopped arbitrarily in the second act, which unexpectedly surpasses nearly every other ball in the last 30+ years of film( notable exception being the Cinderella 2015 ball) for literally no reason other than to be dramatic af.

Like feast your eyes on this Gothic masterpiece!!! Who doesn't want to immediately live in this picture?!??

They used those candles with oil in them so that they would have real candles, real string orchestra( I believe), probably around 100 real life extras( something which is tragically absent in modern film), said extras are all in beautiful fully decked-out costumes( which are in luxuriously dark colours, but nearly no fully black, another thing you cannot say for much modern cinema), REAL CIRQUE DU SOLEIL PERFORMERS for all the acrobatics!!!! Hell, instead of filming in a sound stage, where they could control the reverb and the acoustics and the size of the set and the bloody lighting ( they apparently had a heck of a time emulating the firelight for this sequence) and the temperature( it's very cold in stone churches!) better, they filmed in a Baroque church in Prague! As I said, peak dramatic splendour, jfc...

Think about that a second...They filmed a vampire masquerade in a Baroque Catholic Church( St. Nicholas' in Lesser Town, if you were curious) with amazing over-the-top acoustics and marble statues and real, tiled floors and marble pillars and a choir loft which they very much utilized, covered the pipe organ and the altar with a grand brocade curtain so it wouldn't be so obviously a, you know, a church! And there's a gold gilt elevated and canopied pulpit into which they put two vampire kiddies for, again, the sake of being dramatic.

And the costumes! They remind me of the 25th anniversary Phantom of the Opera Masquerade costumes. Same quality, like they're old, well-cared-for costumes pulled out of a warehouse, instead of fast industry churn-outs. With lots of trim and colour and masks and lace and feathers and..just...ugh.. they are all perfect! Just look at all the head pieces on the ladies and the hats on all the gentleman ( save Dracula of course) and the powdered wigs on the musicians. ANNNNDD! The dresses are historically correct!!!!!! It's the 80's bustle era! Nobody does the 80's bustle era in film anymore and it's a bummer. Oh and one other thing! Anna's ( and other women's) hair, at least here in the ball, is also historically accurate because it's all pinned up! None of those fucken modern beachwaves at a ball! Everybody's got updo's!

Gah, I swear, Dracula in his gold cloak really does things to me in this scene!

By the way, the acrobatics are bonkers in here for just background stuff!! Especially the random guys on unicycles and the dude playing the violin whilst standing on a ball...Like....WHAT?

Anyways, all this to say, that this masquerade ball feels sooo real and tangible and because of that it blows every other film out of the water, and no, I will not change my mind!!!!!

Here's a few more gifs, bcuz, why the hell not, this scene is sexy as fuu*ck?

Alright I need to go to bed now.

[mr-viwick]

I’m aware only Dracula might be able to turn into a bat but it won’t stop me from drawing this

[fayevalcntine]

Vampire Appreciation Week: Favorite vampire fiction(s) OR first vampire obsession 

"A silver stake? A crucifix? What, did you think we haven't tried everything before? We've shot him, stabbed him, clubbed him, sprayed him with holy water, staked him through the heart, and STILL he lives! Do you understand? No-one knows how to kill Dracula!"

Van Helsing (2004), directed by Stephen Sommers

[elleldoe]

dude got me giggling and kicking my feet (dude is a fictional character and doesn't even exist)

[fanofspooky]

Scream King - Cary Elwes

[starstrider-productions]

Dracula: 2004 early schedule

Excited about our new project? You should be! Here's what to expect for the next few months:

March: Promotion - teasers, graphics, cast reveals and more!

April: Crowd-funding - your opportunity to secure perks, donate and help us raise some excitement around this show!

May: Recording begins...

For a bit of context, Dracula: 2004 is 38 episodes (divided into 3 parts) of glorious and unrestrained vampire horror, each episode with a runtime of about 20 minutes. We plan to release them on a weekly schedule, and we will be recording them all in one go, which is why we need time to record and edit. But trust me: this show is absolutely going to be worth the wait.

Care to take a bite?

[partial-prints]

If you love vampires, listen up!

Do you enjoy vampires, 80’s music, a healthy dose of homoeroticism - all with a theatrical flair? Well look no further, for I submit to you Dance of the Vampires.

(More cool pictures at the very bottom)

What is it you may ask? It’s a musical about a vampire who seduces a girl and invites her to his midnight ball - an offer she simply cannot turn down. The whole thing sorta gives Phantom of the Opera vibes, but like, wayyy less creepy (despite it being a literal vampire). I will say now that yes, Tanz der Vampire (the original title of Dance of the Vampires), is in German, but there is a full recording with English subtitles on youtube, so please don’t let that prevent you from watching it. Now if you’re still reading, allow me to elaborate on the 80’s music and homoeroticism that I previously mentioned.

Let’s start with the tragic gay romance, because I’m sure that’s what you want to hear about first. While not a main part of the musical, the main vampire’s son falls in love with - gasp! - the vampire hunter’s apprentice. They dance together, and with stage magic involving a mesh screen and an actor on the other side dressed identically to the apprentice, it appears as though the vampire has no reflection in the “mirror”. Of course, the feeling is not mutual, as the apprentice is only at the castle to rescue the girl, who he is in love with.

Now, onto the 80’s music. Surely you’ve heard of the song Total Eclipse of the Heart, or the singer Meatloaf (even if it was just his role as Eddie in Rocky Horror Picture Show). Well, the man who wrote that song and a majority if not all of Meatloaf’s work, was Jim Steinman, who composed the musical. The soundtrack contains a decent amount of electric guitar, even a bit of synth at parts, and all around just sounds awesome. However, he only had about a month and a half to compose it all, so he reused some stuff he previously wrote, including a couple Meatloaf songs and Total Eclipse of the Heart, a song he originally wrote for a Nosferatu musical that ended up not getting produced. It was actually originally titled “Vampires in Love,” so what better song is there to fill the place of a big love duet between the girl and the Count?

Tanz der Vampire is my favorite musical ever. I’ve loved it ever since Count von Krolock appeared on the screen and first began to sing, and you may love it too. So I implore you. Please do yourself a favor and check it out. I’ll provide a link of a full recording with English subtitles here, but it should also be the first result on youtube when you search “tanz der vampire english subtitles.” (That production also has Drew Sarich as the Count, my personal favorite.) I should add though, do not watch the broadway production because it’s terrible.

If you’re still not sold, I’m not sure what else I could say to convince you, but hopefully you at least found this interesting and learned something new. If you want to know more about Tanz der Vampire or would like to hear about other musicals about vampires, please let me know and I can answer any questions. (If even one person watches it because of this I’ll consider this a success, and if you do watch it please let me know because it would really make my day.)

And now I’ll leave you with some pictures of Tanz der Vampire as a last resort to convince you how awesome it is and that you should watch it. (I also put in the alt text the song each picture is from for anyone interested)

*ooo the set design and costuming have hypnotized you… you want to watch it now… do it for the vampires…*

[lauralot89]

you know, the more I think about it, the more Van Helsing (2004) is a fantastic Dracula adaptation:

It starts with Dracula hanging out with Victor Frankenstein, so you know right away it's not going to be faithful and you can let go of any and all expectations

It's deeply stupid fun and everyone involved understood the assignment

The brides have names and stuff to do in this one and honestly are a bigger threat than Dracula himself

I think Hugh Jackman is nude in one scene, it's been a minute

Beni from The Mummy is there

Faramir from LOTR is there

Richard Roxburgh is clearly having a wonderful time

Honestly one of the more faithful depictions of Frankenstein's monster in anything

The vampire masquerade ball

At one point one of Dracula's enemies is yelling at him, and Dracula's response is to just start dancing for no apparent reason

The plot is essentially vampires attempting the vampire equivalent of IVF

That scene where Dracula is very emotionally yelling about how he doesn't feel emotions

Really buff wolfmen, if you're into that

There's a cow featured in one of the fight scenes

[jas-peesauna]

i have so much to do . anyway heres my boy and his comically large hat

[seapotty]

trysts from my past Van Helsing love affair