Dracula Year One

It’s the buzzword of 2008, and if I’ve heard it once this summer from a director I’ve heard it 100 times: “I want to make my origin story/comic book movie/space adventure/gay cowboy love story more realistic. Think The Dark Knight.“ All fine and good, but just how realistic is too realistic for a character like Dracula?

It’s a fine line for director Alex Proyas, who is currently prepping his next movie Dracula: Year Zero, a story that he said is “sort of the origin tale that mixes [the historical] Prince Vlad of Transylvania with sort of [fictionalized] Bram Stoker [take]” (also find out why Proyas will never direct a Silver Surfer movie here).

Draculas, and vampires in general, are known, of course, for some pretty unrealistic things: being able to transform into bats, for instance, or aversion to garlic, or a lack of a reflection in mirrors, or giant fangs.

“Oh, you’ve got to have teeth,” Proyas exclaimed. “I mean, the teeth are really important. I think Frank Langella in the Dracula movie that was made in the 70s, I think he didn’t want to have teeth in the movie. But, no, I like the teeth. I want to see girls with a lot of teeth.”

Ok, so teeth are in. Garlic? “I think the garlic thing is kind of weird,” Proyas laughed.

And the transformation into a bat? Well…Proyas wouldn’t say. So what parts of mythology DO make it into his version? “Stakes and teeth,” the director smiled. “And we’re lots and lots of blood!”