Topic: Favorite Movie Dracula?

[Ratty]

With reportedly the most film portrayals of any literary character (his imdb page has 327 unique entries) our favorite Vampire has, to put it very mildly, enjoyed a tremendous success in television and movies. But who are your personal favorites and why? For me I have to break into two parts-

Live Action: Bela Lugosi, even though the 1931 Dracula film is not my personal favorite it's an undeniable classic, and Dracula just wouldn't be who he is today without that darling Hungarian ham. (Well, ham in his later life sadly.) I actually like Lugosi's Dracula better in Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein, the only other time he played Dracula in a movie. He managed to be genuinely threatening in spite of all the silliness going on around him, and stole almost every scene he was in.

Animation: Hellsing's Alucard. Just like the franchise he stars in he's so over the top violent, offensive and shocking that I have to love this reinterpretation of the character. Here is Dracula as pure monster, but enjoyable and somehow almost admirable for his unapologetic, reveling evil.

What about you? Are you a diehard Oldman fan, perhaps a devotee of Christopher Lee? (Or is that Christopher Bee?)

PS- Credit where do, this is obviously inspired by these other recent threads:
Favorite Vampire Movies
Who is your favorite Vampire Hunter?

[A-Yty]

I think of movie Dracula in two ways. The monster who looks and acts like a gentleman and the man who acts like a monster, but is more tormented than evil. Lugosi and Oldman represent opposite sides of that coin. Lugosi's Drac is more theatrical than the fairly creepy Nosferatu, for example. But I think the movie being silent played a role in that.

[X]

I never did see any of the other Dracula films. I'm only really familiar with Gary Oldman and his role as the infamous king of vampires. I have always imagined that if a Castlevania movie was to be made then Oldman could reprise his role as Count Dracula. I find he does a good job with that thick accent he manages to pull off.

[Dracula9]

Christopher Lee.

Then Bela Lugosi, then Gary Oldman, then Max Shreck.

And I guess Van Helsing's Dracula. He looked the part pretty well IMO, gotta give him a couple of points for that at least.

[chainsawmidget]

I can't choose between Lee and Lugosi.  Those two defined the character.

[Abnormal Freak]

Even though it's a strange cop-out given what I said in the Dracula movies thread about Count Orlok being his own vampire separate from Dracula, I do all the same consider him—under Max Schreck's portrayal—my favorite version of Dracula. He's just this horrible monster that lusts for a woman and goes through all this stuff to be with her, and is pretty inhuman and more like a fiendish monster. I think it's true what was said in the other thread that Lee's Dracula in Horror of Dracula seems more like a wild animal than a monster.

Another portrayal I love is Klaus Kinski in Nosferatu the Vampyre. Coppola's movie gets a lot of credit for making Dracula a sympathetic character, a lovelorn wanderer in search of something better than what he's known, but Herzog's remake of Nosferatu really makes you feel for Dracula's predicament. He has this eternal sadness in his eyes and temperament, and his cruel acts become means to an end rather than him being strictly evil. So you pretty much get this lonely character that looks like a monster.

It also helps that Herzog's film has some of the thickest, most troubling and dreamlike atmosphere in any horror movie.

[Super Waffle]

Christopher Lee's pet cat can shoot lasers out of its eyes

Gotta go with that guy.

[Pfil]

Gary Oldman, forever.