Fresh Blood

It’s hard to improve on the original Dracula, but weak adaptations are as common as cheap plastic vampire teeth. That’s why I was surprisingly jazzed by Audible’s new dramatization of Bram Stoker’s novel, a book I’ve probably read and/or listened to dozens of times since I first pulled it from our home bookshelf at the tender age of eight.

The biggest challenge in translating the book to another medium is structural. Published in 1897, Dracula is a patchwork of diary entries, letters, newspaper clippings, telegrams and other documents. Stoker builds suspense by making the reader piece together the horror alongside the characters. To pull this off for stage or screen, it is necessary to turn all that private writing and secondhand testimony into things people can plausibly say or do in front of us. Preserve too much of the machinery and the story gets stuck; strip it away and you risk losing the peculiar, accumulating dread that makes the novel work.

This new version, adapted by Robyn Ahern and directed by Mary Lambert, stars Ella Purnell as Mina Harker and Aimee Lou Wood as Lucy Westenra. Both are perfectly cast. Purnell—of Yellowjackets, Fallout and assorted other things—is especially good as Mina, who is something like a proto-feminist detective: intelligent, capable, a bit stressy and not inclined to suffer fools.

Wood, whom I mostly know from The White Lotus, is equally well suited to Lucy, an entitled upper-class free spirit who is basically a Victorian hippie chick. She gives the character exactly the right combination of flightiness, warmth and vulnerability.

Then there’s Dracula.

Jonathan Bailey, whom I could mostly take or leave, plays the Count. I haven’t watched Bridgerton, though I’ve seen him as Fiyero in Wicked. Apparently women think he’s super sexy, which is perhaps the biggest mystery of all.

He is, however, a really good Dracula.

Bailey uses his natural English accent, though I generally prefer Dracula to sound at least somewhat Eastern European. That foreignness is part of the character’s seductive otherness. Initially, I found Bailey almost too chipper when receiving Jonathan Harker at the castle. But as the performance unfolds, you realize that’s the point. The charm is the lure. Underneath it is something much more sinister; when the mask slips, Bailey becomes appropriately malicious. Evil, even. There are no “immortal beloved” vibes here. This Dracula is charismatic, cunning and thoroughly cruel.

Maggie Gyllenhaal as Professor Van Helsing took some adjustment. At first she seemed stiff, and I wasn’t sure about the casting. Then Van Helsing gets down to examination and Gyllenhaal clicks into place as a no-bullshit lady-boss vampire hunter. Alongside Mina, she is key to uncovering the truth about the predatory stranger in their midst.

Louis Partridge is quite good as Jonathan Harker, as is David Jonsson as the lovelorn Dr. Incel, excuse me, Seward. Johnny Flynn gives Renfield an appropriately deranged performance, and his fly munching has a wonderfully visceral mouth-feel.

The production itself may be the real star. Lambert and company have created an aural environment that puts you inside the story more convincingly than any audio drama I can remember. I listened on AirPods Pro, and the Dolby Atmos mix is spectacular. When someone knocks at a door, you may actually turn your head.

The adaptation, which is alternately sensual and scary, rearranges things just enough to improve the flow, removing some of the staginess without sacrificing narrative. Mina becomes the story’s center of gravity, but it’s neither contrived nor clumsy. It feels less like “updating” Dracula than emphasizing what was already there.

If this is your cup of blood, don’t snooze. Audible’s Dracula is compelling, beautifully produced and clearly fashioned with care and deep affection for the source material. I enjoyed it so much I’ve listened to it twice. We may have drained the vein when it comes to screen adaptations, at least for now. But if somebody insists on making another one, they could do a hell of a lot worse than this cast.