Nosferatu: Legend of Dracula
No modern-day monster can equal the chill factor than that of Dracula and his nosferatu, the undead who must feed on the blood of the living to exist. Their lust, shown only in the darkest hours, haunts even the bravest of us mortal souls. This adaptation of Bram Stoker's 1897 novel is done with a sure and steady hand by frightmesiter L. Don Swartz. We encounter Dracula's horror from his centuries-old castle in Europe, to the ship he travels on, and finally to his new feeding grounds near an English asylum. When Dracula causes the death of a young woman named Lucy, her fiance, her friend Mina, a physician, and others must conquer their fears to become vampire "hunters." In order to free Miss Lucy's soul, they must destroy her body, and more importantly, the Count's as well. The hunters are lead by Dr. Van Helsing, in a daring character departure portrayed here as a woman. Another departure is a tight, sharp ending focusing on Mina and her role in the vampire's destruction. Rather than a love story which asks us to sympathize with the Count, a 20th-century invention, this version remains true to Stoker's thematic core, the power of good over evil.