Blumhouse ‘Dracula’ Will Remain Faithful To Bram Stoker’s Book, According To Director Karyn Kusama
Karyn Kusama, director ofJennifer’s Body,The Invitation, andDestroyer, is set to raiseDraculafrom his moldy tomb for Blumhouse, and that’s worth getting excited about. Sure, there are countless film takes on Bram Stoker’s bloodsucking count, but Kusama is such a unique, exciting director to tackle this material. And in a recent interview, the filmmaker makes it clear she’s not going to take the same old approach to the story.
I’ve been enamored with the work of Karyn Kusama ever since I was blown away byThe Invitation, a nerve-wracking thriller that never lets up from beginning to end. Kusama followed that up with the criminally underratedDestroyer, and before that, she helmed the equally underratedJennifer’s Body(she also directed theAeon Fluxmovie, but let’s not get sidetracked on that). Now, the director is set to adaptDraculafor Blumhouse, and I couldn’t be more excited.
During an interview with theKingcast(viaBloody Disgusting), Kusama revealed some insight into her take onDracula, calling it “a fairly faithful adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel,” and adding:
“I think something that gets overlooked in the adaptations of Dracula in the past is the idea of multiple voices. In fact, the book is filled with different points of view. And the one point of view we don’t get access to, and all most adaptations give access to, is Dracula himself. So I would just 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 the past… in past interpretations of Dracula.”
Believe it or not, even though there are approximately ten billionDraculaadaptations, almost none of them sticks to Bram Stoker’s source material. The film that comes closest is Francis Ford Coppola’s stylishBram Stoker’s Dracula, but even that changes things up by making old Drac a tragic, romantic figure. In fact, pretty much everyDraculamovie turns the vampire count into a sexy, gothic romance type of character, but that’s not the case in Bram Stoker’s novel.
In fact, Stoker’s book keeps Dracula mostly in the background. Save for the opening chapters, where Jonathan Harker is stuck in Dracula’s castle, Dracula only appears fleetingly in the novel, and when he shows up, he’s not romantic – he’s pure evil. It sounds like Kusama is sticking true to that, and that will certainly make herDraculastand apart from the pack.
