Count Dracula: Literary Figure vs. Pop Culture Phenom

Thanks to the Twilight Saga and True Blood new interest has been sparked in this old literary and film character. Vampires are hot but this original vampire was not. Based on a Eastern European tyrant - Vlad Tepes aka Vlad the Impaler - Count Dracula was originally a genuine monster. He was short, creepy, and pale with a bald head and pointy ears as well as the well defined canines.  The 1922 film Nosferatu with Max Shrek in the title role followed very closely to the character as defined by Bram Stoker in his novel, Dracula.

Hollywood capitalized on the sexually charged nature of the vampire myths and provided a more attractive figure of the Count in the forms of Bela Lugosi in the 1930s and Christopher Lee in the 1960s. Well-dressed, well-spoken and exotically refined became the traits of this monster. 

The literary Count wooed his victims, typically young virgin aristocrats, from afar using their dreams to encourage night wandering making them easy prey. He would feed on them bit by bit until they died from their blood loss and became undead themselves. Hollywood's Count Dracula has a monstrous sex appeal that draws his victims to him. The innocent female victims are now complicit in their fate because they experience an undeniable attraction to this figure that wouldn't exist with the literary or historical figure.

The original Count Dracula did not sparkle in the sunlight, brood over the state of his soul, or adopt a "vegetarian" lifestyle. He was ugly, brutish and a true figure of horror.