Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) with Crystal

On this episode, Caitlin, Jamie, and special guest Crystal sink their teeth into Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)!

Follow Crystal on social media at @crystalwillseeyounow and check out Camp Classics podcast!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the Bechdelcast, the questions asked if movies have women
and them all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands, or
do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy. Zeph and Beast
start changing with the Bechdel Cast.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Hello, Jamie, it just me nine tih Dracula. Bello, Caitlin,
It's hello.

Speaker 3 (00:27):
The Minions worked for Dracula. Oh don't you remember from
the opening of Mini, I do remember the Minion has
worked for real people and fake people.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
Yes, wow, incredible anyway today.

Speaker 3 (00:39):
Because I didn't, I didn't. I politely refused to do
the voice. I wish there was a way to I
love like thee the like laugh lines that Anthony Hopkins
gets where He's like, I know you're hurting right now,
but we have to cut your wife's head off right now.
It's an emergency. You're like Jesus, Welcome to the back
soil Ast. My name is Jamie Loftis.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
My name is Caitlin Deronte, also known as If listeners
listen to the Daily Zeitgeist, you might know me as
my anagram alias nine tit Dracula.

Speaker 3 (01:11):
Truly the best. There's a lot of good ones, but
that is the best.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
It's a really good well, I prefer Lauren d Titanic.

Speaker 3 (01:18):
Oh yeah, that's that is pretty good. That sounds like
like a Carmen san Diego style ioas. But for the
sake of today, nine tit Dracula will do.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
Yes, indeed, because we are covering Bram Stoker's Dracula nineteen
ninety two. This is the Bechdel Cast, our podcast where
we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens, using the
Bechdel test as a jumping off point. Which what's that?
Should we say?

Speaker 3 (01:46):
Well? Sure, why not? Because the creator of the Bechtel
test is now our dearest friend friend, so for her
because she needs our help. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:57):
The Bechel's hast was created by Quirker to miss Alison
Bechdel with her friend Liz Wallace. It's so weird to
do this in person. Often called the Bechdel Wallace Test.
There's a lot of versions of the test. The version
we use is thus, there are two characters with names
of a marginalized gender who speak to each other about

(02:18):
something other than a man for two lines of dialogue.
And I feel like it is kind of weirdly relevant
in today's episode because It was originally created specifically in
response to a lack of queer relationships between women on screen.
I feel like there is a for me, a very

(02:39):
erotic relationship between women in this very film. They kiss,
they literally kiss. That's erotic. Famously, not always, but in
this case very yes.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
Yes, yes, yes, And like you mentioned, Jamie, we are
sitting in person. Very rare for us to do an
in person record, but it's a special occasion because our
guest is visiting from another country and you know them already.
They are a drag artist known for RuPaul's Drag Race
UK season one. They're the host of the podcast Camp Classics,

(03:11):
and you remember them from our episodes on show Girls
and Jawbreaker. It's Crystal.

Speaker 4 (03:17):
Hi, I've crushed oceans of dives to be here.

Speaker 2 (03:25):
You really did, I literally did, literally did?

Speaker 5 (03:29):
Hi?

Speaker 4 (03:30):
Hello, Thanks for having me.

Speaker 3 (03:32):
Actually see Yeah.

Speaker 4 (03:34):
Likewise, this is it is kind of intense, this in
person thing.

Speaker 3 (03:37):
Yes, yeah, speaking out about the eye contact, I know
you're so beautiful. This is great. It is. I like
that we only record in person when someone is specifically
visiting from England, because we did that with Kate a
couple of months ago as well.

Speaker 4 (03:55):
Well.

Speaker 3 (03:55):
I mean even just the three movies we've covered with
you all very campy movies. So before we get into
your history with the movie, tell us about the podcast.

Speaker 4 (04:05):
Oh, thank you. Yeah. So I've started a podcast called
camp Classics, which I guess is kind of like your podcasts,
but a queer lens we're looking at. We call it
a thoughtful podcast about stupid movies. So we're covering kind
of queer coded and explicitly queer movies and kind of
looking at them through a queer lens. This movie really

(04:28):
qualifies as a camp classic. We've got We typically look
at things from four categories to determine whether or not
something's a camp classic. You look at it and you say,
is it any queer joy? Does it have an ongoing legacy?
Stupid fun? And underdog flop vibes? Those are typical categories.

(04:50):
So this movie ticks some boxes Foreshore.

Speaker 3 (04:52):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 4 (04:52):
And also, I just think whenever vampires are involved, you're
probably in camp territory.

Speaker 2 (04:58):
Almost always.

Speaker 3 (04:59):
Almost we've been covered I mean, we did interview with
a vampire last year, We've just recovered Twilight, and now,
I mean, vampires are on the brain. Centers just came
out we've all seen Sinners.

Speaker 4 (05:11):
Not a particularly camp movie.

Speaker 3 (05:13):
I'd say, actually, no, no idea.

Speaker 2 (05:15):
It was the flop vibes are not there's no but
it is horny, and that's also a prerequisite, I think
for a vampire mode.

Speaker 4 (05:24):
Oh yeah, it's yeah, it's sexy. It's sexy. That movie
was so good.

Speaker 3 (05:30):
It was so good. I really want to see I
need to see it a second time.

Speaker 4 (05:34):
Everything I consume right now just seems to involve vampires,
which I'm not mad about.

Speaker 3 (05:39):
They're back. I feel like whatever cultural cycle like that
we fell out of in the late two thousands, we're back.
And I think that the media is kind of better
now too, which is kind of cool.

Speaker 4 (05:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (05:50):
Yeah, I was going through because No Saratu also came
out recently. I was going through the ranked Dracula slash
No Saratu because Nosaracha is basically just a Dracula knockoff,
and there have been Yeah, the two thousands was not
a great time for Dracula. I didn't realize that Geord
Butler had played Drus.

Speaker 4 (06:09):
I am desperate to see Dracula two thousands.

Speaker 3 (06:12):
Okay, have you seen I have it up his audition tape.
He's wearing like a Chris Angel wig.

Speaker 4 (06:20):
It's really wow.

Speaker 3 (06:22):
It's really I love Geord Butler. He's not afraid to
be really bad in the movie. I love it.

Speaker 4 (06:29):
Gary Oldman isn't dead, but he is rolling in his grave.

Speaker 3 (06:32):
Yes, yes, Gary Oldman could never wear this wig, and
neither could try. No one should wear this wig. I
love it. I love it. But yeah, it seems like
the twenty twenties have been good to vampires so far.

Speaker 4 (06:47):
Yeah, apparently Dracula is the most adapted piece of media ever.

Speaker 2 (06:52):
Yes, making like I read something like seven hundred appearances
in different adaptations, plays, movies, TV shows.

Speaker 3 (07:00):
There are so many different I mean, obviously count Orlock
is a Dracula ripoff. And I say obviously I had
to check because I you know, so you never know
who's ripping off who. Sure, but count Orlock is a
Dracula rip off. But there's also there's like the Monster,
the Universal Monster version, which is kind of like stripped
of context Dracula and he's just a weird guy. There's

(07:20):
this Dracula who the like book Cannon Dracula. There's Hotel
Transylvania Dracula.

Speaker 5 (07:28):
That's my niece's favorite of course count Oh my god,
see everyone's got their Dracula countcula.

Speaker 3 (07:39):
There's why did children have so many vampires? That that's alarming?

Speaker 2 (07:43):
And then you've got things like Blacula and just all
different manner of adaptations there were.

Speaker 3 (07:49):
This is from a Vulture list, because I mean their
vulture can be counted upon to have a list of
this nature. And I celebrate that because I really needed it.
This morning I learned about adaptations I hadn't heard of.
One that I was like. One I haven't seen but
I knew about was Willem Dafoe in Shadow of the Vampire.

Speaker 2 (08:07):
Oh my god, love it, love that movie.

Speaker 3 (08:10):
Yeah, because isn't that about the making of nos forra Tu?

Speaker 2 (08:13):
Yes?

Speaker 3 (08:13):
And then he was in Knows for a two.

Speaker 4 (08:15):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (08:16):
And then you know who else is in Knows for
a Tu. Nicholas Holt, who plays Renfield in a different
movie starring Nicholas Cage and Nicholas Cage is in a
different movie called Vampire's Kiss.

Speaker 3 (08:27):
Once the Vampire. Wait did I tell my Nicholas Holt
story on the show before? I think I already did.
It might have been on the Patreoon. Remember tell us, Okay,
not to knark out Nicholas Holt, but my friend Cory,
friend of the show, Cory lives in Long Beach. Apparently
Nicholas Holt lives in Long Beach. Nicholas Holt had two
movies in theaters this Christmas. They were Juror Number two

(08:49):
and No Forratu. Nicholas Holt goes to first of all,
Nicholas Holt AMC STUBBS member kind of Wild.

Speaker 2 (08:56):
Love It, where he and I are in community together,
and please.

Speaker 3 (09:00):
Don't use this information for evil. Nicholas Holt confirmed STUBS
member Corey has gotten in the Long Beach AMC. She
knows all the information. Nicholas Holt goes to the Long
Beach AMC on Christmas and everyone's like, is he going
to see his own movie alone on Christmas? No, He's
going to see Sonic three alone on Christmas. And I

(09:21):
was like, he's great. I love him and I would
be a lifelong fan.

Speaker 1 (09:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (09:25):
I already thought that man was really sexy, but now.

Speaker 3 (09:29):
He's like also painfully, like beautiful. I was like, I
would do that. I would see Sonic three alone in
Long Beach.

Speaker 4 (09:35):
That's so powerful, especially if you knew you were going
to get clocked doing it.

Speaker 3 (09:38):
Like he walked past two theaters that he was the
star of the movie and was like, no, it's gonna
be Sonic three for me.

Speaker 4 (09:46):
No one needs to see Juror number two.

Speaker 3 (09:48):
I think he's wow. He's so real. He's a Stubs
member just like us. He probably could afford a movie theater. Okay, sorry,
I'm talking too much. The one Dracula adaptation I learned
about that I want to see now it is Dracula
Pages from a Virgin's Diary, which is from two thousand
and two. It is a silent, black and white film,

(10:09):
but it is the only major adaptician at least on
this list, that stars an Asian Dracula, and it really
hones in on the like the idea of Dracula as
the other and also I just like the title Pages
from a Virgin's Diary. Anyways, he's ranked number He's the

(10:30):
seventh best Dracula. That's pretty high. Wow, that's pretty high. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (10:35):
Okay, well, shall we get into it with Crystal. What
is your relationship with this movie.

Speaker 4 (10:42):
With Francis Ford Coppola as Bramstoker's Dracula.

Speaker 2 (10:44):
Yes, as Dracula in general, and of course Francis Ford
Coppola of Megalopolis fame.

Speaker 4 (10:50):
We can.

Speaker 3 (10:51):
I mean, he's not afraid to do a silly one.
We know this about him.

Speaker 4 (10:56):
Yeah, he what's that tweet? He came on this movie,
broke career in shambles, mad as hell. I feel like
that's the story for this movie. I have to embarrassingly
admit I have not seen a single other friendsis.

Speaker 3 (11:12):
That's okay, I just saw The Godfather for this show.

Speaker 4 (11:17):
Right, I'll get to it. I understand it's supposed to
be quite good, so you know, I was surprised.

Speaker 3 (11:22):
I really, I really came in not wanting to like it.
But it is actually quit it's pretty good. I'm the
first person to say that.

Speaker 4 (11:29):
It turns out. Yeah, But this movie, I think I
must have seen it as a child, and it terrified
the piss out of me. I can still like before
I watched this movie again recently and then again this week,
I still had that image of Gary Oldman crawling that
wall and just I found it so terrifying. For some reason.
I watched it again earlier this year and was just

(11:50):
obsessed with the campness of it. I had not expected
it to be so silly. It really takes a lot
of big swings this movie. And then I watched it
again this week to prep for this. I've really enjoyed
all of my time with this movie.

Speaker 2 (12:02):
Same same, Yeah, I didn't see it. I didn't see
it the whole way through until I think within the
past year prior to that. And this is something we've
mentioned on the podcast before, but our friend Alex's Horrorthon
that he does, it's like a twenty four hour horror
movie marathon that he does every year. And I saw
it for that one year, probably like seven ish years

(12:26):
ago or something like that, except that I wasn't in
the room for most of it because I had to
like go teach a class.

Speaker 3 (12:31):
That's how our horrthon goes. I like painted my whole
bathroom during Horror Fi one year, right.

Speaker 2 (12:38):
So I only saw bits and pieces of it, but
I was like, what is this movie? Of course I
had heard of it before, and I was familiar with
different things like Keanu's bad accent and all that kind
of stuff, but I had never fully seen it until
pretty recently, and I was like, oh my gosh, this
is the best. I love it. I'm obsessed. Watched it

(12:59):
three times to prep for this.

Speaker 3 (13:01):
You've you've been like raving about this movie for the
last year.

Speaker 2 (13:05):
Yeah, so I'm new to it, but I love it
the end, Jamie, what about you?

Speaker 3 (13:12):
I thought, I, this is so embarrassing. I thought I
had seen this movie. I was aware of the Kianu
accent thing. I was thinking of Gary Oldman's makeup, and
I confused it with Ron Perlman Beast from It's a
very similar makeup the Linda Hamilton Ron Pearlman series about

(13:33):
Beauty and the Beast, where Linda Hamilton plays I think,
not Belle but Bell, who's like a lawyer who goes
out and hangs in the sewer with Ron Pearlman Beast. Anyways,
I thought it was that it wasn't I have seen
a lot of that show, but I had not seen this,
and I mean, it's like, it's great, it's great. I

(13:55):
had read the book in high school and then I
was hoping to finish it because I've found an audiobook
that stars Alan Cumming as Doctor Seward and Tim Curry
as Van Helsing, and so i bought that audiobook and

(14:15):
I'm like about halfway through it. It's interesting the like
adaptation elements that Francis Ford Coppola ads because he like
expands Mina's story by a lot, but in a way
that I was like, that's what you did.

Speaker 2 (14:28):
I mean, that's what most of my notes are about.

Speaker 3 (14:31):
Yeah, because I mean I appreciated that because I mean,
she's not like a straightforward character, but she is, you know,
very virtuous and very like observant active, but ultimately, you know,
she has brown hair, so she's virtuous. Lucy doesn't have
brown hair, so she's cooked. And that's how white woman
characters work a lot of the time. Yeah, but yeah, no,

(14:54):
I mean it's it's interesting, like how many different reads
there are of this. It's really hard to prepare for
a Dracula episode because there's so.

Speaker 4 (15:01):
Much, yeah, other stuff floating around and in the culture,
and like, which part do you focus on?

Speaker 3 (15:07):
I'm I'm really excited to talk about it. The production
of this movie is also like interesting. I was showing
Caitlin before you got her Crystal. There's a clip of
the whole cast playing zip zaps off, which was quite triggering,
and they're like seeing Anthony Hopkins, Sir Anthony Hopkins playing

(15:29):
zip zaps off. I'm like, that's that's a bridge too far?

Speaker 4 (15:34):
Was Gary Oldman there because he famously was kind of
like absent during production, right, he was just in his
tiller getting absolutely shit faced.

Speaker 3 (15:42):
God, I'm yeah, because Winona like called him out for
that years later, thankfully. But I can't tell because they're
all wearing, with all due respect, that all the men
are wearing the same shapeless nineties outfit. So I really
can't tell if he's there or not.

Speaker 4 (15:58):
Even in this movie, it's sometimes it's hard to tell
who's who with these men. They're all kind of saying me, Yeah,
that's what.

Speaker 2 (16:05):
Happens when you have an all white cast. I'm like,
who's that guy?

Speaker 3 (16:10):
Yeah? And who is, with all due respect, Billy Campbell?
I don't know, indeed.

Speaker 2 (16:16):
Yeah, let's take a quick break and then we'll come
back for the recap.

Speaker 3 (16:31):
Billy Campbell is an American film and television actor. Oh yeah,
so there you go.

Speaker 2 (16:39):
That's who that is. Okay, here is the recap. We
open on backstory about Dracula played by disgraced actor Gary Oldman, and.

Speaker 3 (16:50):
It's kind of incredible, incredible in the not great way.
How much this movie's production like bears that out, and
how in the nineties, you could just say, like, yeah,
it was a piece of shit on this movie, and
that's why I'm so good at acting, and like.

Speaker 2 (17:08):
Yeah, truly. So it's fourteen sixty two in Transylvania and
Dracula is a human man at first, and he has
a beloved his wife, Elisabetta played by Winona Ryder, who
he must leave to go to war because men be

(17:30):
going to war and impaling people. And then Elizabetha gets
word that Dracula died in battle, so she takes her
own life. But he didn't die. That was just like
false fake news.

Speaker 3 (17:47):
This happened to Romeo and Juliet too. Wait to see
the body, ladies, wait to see the body.

Speaker 4 (17:53):
Or just don't kill yourself because is dead.

Speaker 3 (17:56):
There's so much to live for. Don't die. I'm a man,
ye all do respect to your deceased loved ones.

Speaker 2 (18:03):
Anyway, So Dracula comes back to his dead wife absolutely
devastated and infuriated at like the church and the clergy
who had like sent him to war. So he denounces God,
saying that he's going to rise from his own death.

Speaker 3 (18:21):
He stabs across the cross start elodes into a cloud
of blood, which is awesome.

Speaker 4 (18:27):
What a cool way to become a vampire.

Speaker 3 (18:29):
God, I know he really like the mellow drama and
this is just oh, it's so good, it's amazing.

Speaker 2 (18:34):
And so he drinks the blood from the cross and
that's how it becomes a little Vampire's such a drama queen. Okay.
Then we cut to London eighteen ninety seven. We meet
a man named Renfield played by Tom Waits of Shrek
two fame.

Speaker 3 (18:53):
Oh, he plays the.

Speaker 2 (18:56):
Same more well he played. I guess he plays Captain
hook Slash. He sings one of his songs in the
bar that Shrek goes too.

Speaker 3 (19:06):
That's important, yeah, in some way, which kind of makes
him the most famous actor in the movie. Indeed. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (19:13):
Okay, So Renfield has been institutionalized, so another man is
tasked with taking over his work. This is Jonathan Harker
played by Keanu Reeves doing a very good and very
authentic English accent. No, no, oh, I know, poor poor guy.

(19:33):
I read that he like the reason he sounds so
stilted and that he's like doing a bad job is
because he was trying so hard to make it perfect,
and Coppola was just like just relax a bit buzz.

Speaker 3 (19:45):
Less up, buddy, and he's like, I can't. Yeah. So
he Coppola does still say very no way. I have
a fun quote about him. He said this was like
ten years ago. He said, like, Keanu is still a
prince in my eyes.

Speaker 4 (20:03):
He saw nice.

Speaker 3 (20:06):
He said, he tried so hard. That was the problem.
He wanted to do it perfectly, and in trying to
do it perfectly, it came off as stilted. I tried
to get him to just relax with it and not
do it so fastidiously. So maybe I wasn't as critical
of him, but that's because I like him so much
to this day. He's a prince in my eyes, which
because his character is not a prince. He's just saying that.

Speaker 2 (20:26):
But Keanu is a prince.

Speaker 4 (20:28):
Yeah. He belongs in i'd say modern movies or maybe
in the future movies.

Speaker 3 (20:34):
He does have a face for the future. Yeah yeah,
and he and.

Speaker 4 (20:37):
He does silent and brooty well, but he doesn't necessarily a.

Speaker 2 (20:41):
Period piece is not for him.

Speaker 3 (20:43):
Yeah, And he also said that he Coplo said he
cast Keanu in that part because he was looking for
like a hot guy of the moment, because the part
of Jonathan kind of famously sucks, which no, I mean
for Nicholas Holt that we could. But Jonathan. I think
Jonathan's a really funny character because he's just like white,

(21:05):
not going it through the most uncomfort I really liked
it in The New Nose for Autu too.

Speaker 4 (21:10):
We're just getting cooked.

Speaker 3 (21:11):
He's just getting he's getting like or just like that
first dinner where it's like this like absurd looking guy
being like, okay, so you live with me now, and
he's like, yeah, yes, okay, thank you for having me.
I like Jonathan, he acts like I went in that situation. Okay, okay, okay,

(21:32):
I've been kidnapped.

Speaker 2 (21:34):
Anyway. So Jonathan Harker is about to go to Transylvania
to close some real estate deals of Count Dracula, who
has been buying property up all over London, although of
course no one knows that this Dracula is a vampire.
They just think he's like an eccentric rich dude. Jonathan

(21:59):
technically is, yeah, in addition to being a vampire. So
Jonathan says goodbye to his fiancee Mina played by also
Winona Ryder, who is also doing a very good English accent.

Speaker 3 (22:16):
She's done an English accent a fair cause heidden, what's
the movie Colonial England? And oh, Crucible, but I think
that had already come out at this point.

Speaker 2 (22:26):
I asked, I don't know the timeline, but yeah, she's
she's doing her best.

Speaker 1 (22:31):
She is.

Speaker 4 (22:32):
I think.

Speaker 3 (22:32):
I think her performance is great. The accent is meth
but I performances equally, I know.

Speaker 2 (22:39):
So Jonathan sets off to Dracula's castle in Transylvania, and
his journey is as spooky as hell. There's like wols
and bats and a creepy carriage driver who sort of
looks like the alien from the Alien movies, and there's
just like all kinds of weird shit. He arrives at

(23:00):
the castle and is greeted by Dracula.

Speaker 4 (23:04):
And which looks like that scary man with a.

Speaker 2 (23:09):
Yeah there's and then and also not to appearance shame Dracula,
but he looks.

Speaker 3 (23:16):
Like a lot of people that I think it's there's
a there's a threshold we can body shame drag we can,
and he killed a lot of people.

Speaker 2 (23:24):
He looks like Emperor Palpatine. And then I've got thinking that, yes,
he's got these like two titty lump hairstyle.

Speaker 3 (23:33):
Which weirdly enough, is how he's described in the book. Oh, like,
I think that a lot of what this adaptation it
adds a lot of stuff, but it doesn't really take
a lot of stuff out, Like the book is really weird.

Speaker 4 (23:46):
He's a fan of Sailor Moon space buns.

Speaker 3 (23:48):
Yes, yes, yeah, diabolical Lea.

Speaker 2 (23:53):
So he's being very weird. Dracula is he's like flinging
his sword around, his shadow is walking around independent of
his movements, the palms of his hands are furry, you know,
all kinds of weird stuff. And then also Dracula sees
Jonathan's picture of Mina, who looks a lot like his

(24:15):
beloved Elizabetta, and he's like, oh, who's that a wooga?
Hey Jonathan, you better stay here for a month. But
don't worry. I'm definitely not going to go and steal
your girlfriend in London.

Speaker 3 (24:30):
Right, And he's like, oh, but well, I have you.
Can you write three letters confirming that you're totally okay
that I can just sort of send out every so often.
Is such a dumb ass, I love? And he's like, yeah,
I'll do that, Yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, no problem.

Speaker 4 (24:47):
Something might be kind of weird about this castle, but well.

Speaker 3 (24:51):
I don't want to argue, Okay.

Speaker 2 (24:54):
So meanwhile, back in London, Mina writes in her diary
about how much she missus Jonathan, how she's going to
stay with her friend Lucy while Jonathan is away. And
Lucy's whole thing is that she is horny.

Speaker 3 (25:10):
Horney, so horny, and so you're like, well, of course
I think terrible it's gonna happen to her. But she's
kind of a little polyamorous. She's being like, why can't
I marry three people? I'm like, why can't you? She
has this.

Speaker 2 (25:24):
Beautiful polycule of several men who are fawning.

Speaker 3 (25:28):
Over her, desperate to give her blood transfusions.

Speaker 4 (25:33):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (25:34):
One of them is a man from Texas named Quincy
Morris played by Billy Campbell.

Speaker 3 (25:38):
Oh, he's an American actor.

Speaker 2 (25:40):
Oh that's who that is.

Speaker 3 (25:42):
Okay, you might have recognized him from American acting.

Speaker 1 (25:48):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (25:49):
So another is a doctor named Jack Seward played by
Richard E. Grant, and then the third is a lawyer
named Arthur Holmewood played by Carrie of saw Fame.

Speaker 3 (26:06):
Yes, his most famous role.

Speaker 4 (26:08):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (26:09):
And also, by the way, doctor Jack is currently treating
Renfield the man who was driven mad after that recent
trip to Transylvania. He's eating bugs and carrying on about
his master, who is obviously Dracula. Back at the castle,
Dracula continues to be super weird. He's shaving Jonathan, he's

(26:34):
licking the blood from his cut.

Speaker 4 (26:36):
Apparently this was the scene. Specifically, Gary Alban was completely steamed.
Oh he's been drinking vodka all day. Yes, it's so,
it's so fascinating.

Speaker 3 (26:46):
Very scary guy.

Speaker 4 (26:48):
Yeah, he basically plays that drunk man. Also, and have
you seen slow Horses? No, I think it's him. Yeah,
it's it's him, and he's just plays an alcoholic but anyway, yeah,
he's I do love his performance though. He's so watchable.

Speaker 2 (27:04):
He turns in a great performance. And he's also a
very bad person and two things. Unfortunately, it can be true.

Speaker 3 (27:11):
What has what has?

Speaker 4 (27:12):
I don't know what he's done.

Speaker 2 (27:13):
He was very very abusive to his wife, his ex wife,
like the the police got involved. Oh I think it
was like one of those let me just sorry, Okay,
So yeah, he was like tremendously physically abusive to his
ex wife. And this was a This this all happened

(27:36):
after the production of this movie.

Speaker 3 (27:39):
But also, I mean, like you're saying, there's so many
examples during the production of this movie where when on
a Rider was like I just felt super unsafe around him,
and you know, has sort of like walked those comments back.
But also she had like it just sounded like it
was being around him was awful and like they had
a family relationship, and then she loved Keanu. There's I

(28:05):
have a quote from her as a as a palate cleanser.
This is from a Vanity Fair interview where we Noa
was going over her old journals from this time, where
she said, I have these journals and I just pulled
one out recently. It was from around the time of Dracula.
The text says, angst angst, angst angst, thank god for Keanu,
thank God, I'm going to see Keanu. So they're just

(28:28):
they're just besties. And it seems like, I mean, Copla
says he's a prince. It just seems like everyone's looking
forward to seeing Keanu and absolutely dreading seeing Gary Oldman,
who in you know, the press junket for this movie
is like very forthcoming about like, yeah, I was really
fucked up and I would like lean over and whisper
obscenities to scare people.

Speaker 4 (28:49):
And you're just sleeping in a coffin every night.

Speaker 3 (28:52):
These really like methody kind of things were, but like,
you know, method as a means to a use your
co workers. Interestingly, they originally wanted Daniel da Lewis to
play Dragula. Oh who, I haven't heard of him ever.
Like hurting anyone doing method acting, it seems like there
is surely there's a way to not hurt people.

Speaker 4 (29:14):
Surely you say that, but like I'm trying to think
of someone who's kind of unproblematically method because I don't know.
I mean, the next person that jumps it to mind
is Jared Letto, who, yeah, I guess he also did
that ship on a.

Speaker 3 (29:25):
Vampire, But isn't he Jim Carrey did it for a
Man on the Moon when he was playing Andy Kaufman.
There's so many examps, but there are some that are
just like, I haven't heard of means story about danielday Lewis.
I could be wrong, nor have I.

Speaker 2 (29:39):
Yeah, it might just be that Tom.

Speaker 3 (29:42):
Hardy as Matt Max where it just sounds like he
just sort of was like like I don't think he
didn't and he wasn't mean to be played just as
like a little cold.

Speaker 2 (29:51):
Yeah yeah, so method acting maybe not the best.

Speaker 3 (29:55):
Approach if you're already a piece of shit. Yeah right.

Speaker 2 (30:00):
Okay, So Dracula, he's you know, being weird and shaving
Jonathan and Jonathan like that. He starts lurking around the
castle and he goes into this horny fuck room with
three lady vampires and they orgy him up pretty good

(30:25):
until Dracula barges in and he's like, no, Jonathan is mine.
And then Jonathan watches them eat a baby, and.

Speaker 4 (30:34):
He's like, oh, don't you think, though, if you were
a vampire, like a baby would be so delicious.

Speaker 3 (30:43):
It's veal, it's human veal.

Speaker 4 (30:45):
I think babies look delicious a bit. Sometimes I don't
even eat human flesh.

Speaker 3 (30:50):
That is like a like brain reaction to where you're like,
it's so cute, I want to eat it.

Speaker 1 (30:59):
Truly.

Speaker 3 (31:01):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (31:01):
So the next thing we know, Dracula is on his
ship called the Demeter, bound for London, along with several
crates filled with dirt from his castle grounds. We learn
that he gets power from those anyway. On the way,
Dracula is thinking about Mina he's eating the crew of

(31:21):
the ship, et cetera. He arrives in London and he's
in the form of like a wolf man and he
lures Lucy to him, who, by the way, has gotten
engaged to Arthur aka Carrie Is.

Speaker 3 (31:39):
She picks kind of like I think, at least as
they're portrayed in the movie, she kind of picks the
flop I think. But although I was, I don't know,
I was thinking about it. I was like, Seward, that's
a lot of baggage. She takes him at night.

Speaker 4 (31:51):
He also maybe shoots up Heroin at one point.

Speaker 2 (31:53):
He definitely yeah, he has I think a morphine addiction.

Speaker 3 (31:56):
Okay, yeah, he's very like in the book, he's portrayed
as just like a guy, but they really go out
of their way to be like he's he's a bit
of a mess. Whatever. They're not gonna be married for lawn.

Speaker 2 (32:11):
No. So she's engaged, but then she's seduced by Dracula's
vampire powers and she fucks and gets bitten by this
like wolfy version of Dracula, and then Mina comes in
and sees all of this happening, and then Dracula does

(32:31):
my favorite thing where someone's like, don't look at me,
runs away and disappears, So drama, no, not like this.
And then so Mina helps Lucy get inside, and then

(32:52):
Dracula moves into his new house in London. He then
goes out for a stroll around town. We learn that
con trade of popular belief, Dracula can move about in
the daytime, although his powers are weak, and he looks
like how Gary Oldman regularly looks. He's dropped the Palpatine
vibes and now he looks like if Ozzy Osbourne and

(33:15):
Slash had a baby at least.

Speaker 3 (33:19):
Yeah, yeah, the the Unfortunately, the purple glasses really scanned
Johnny Depp to me, but I thought it was really
funny when he like saw on a rider in the
crowd and it cuts to like he kind of looks
like Bono a little bit. You're like, the fuck. Yeah,
this is the guy who's like he must have some
magical abilities because I don't get it. I don't see it.

Speaker 2 (33:42):
That I will talk a lot about, but yeah, we'll
get there, Okay. So he spots Mina, who's also out
and about, and he introduces himself to her as Prince Vlad,
and he's eventually able to lure her in, also using
his vampire powers question Mark. She seems to think that

(34:05):
she recognizes him, and he's also about to bite her,
but he can't bring himself to do it. And I'm
not really sure what's going on here.

Speaker 3 (34:13):
Also like watching porn, Yeah, and I was like, Mina,
how do you? She really repressed I which I like,
we'll talk about more of the productions. But like that
was why win Ona writer wanted this movie to be made,
where she was like, Mina is so interesting and no
one cares like that her Like writers, the whole reason

(34:35):
this movie exists was is true for a lot of
own Writer movies. She's a great producer.

Speaker 2 (34:39):
Yeah yeah, okay. So meanwhile, Lucy is not feeling quite herself,
perhaps because Dracula bit her and she's turning into a vampire.

Speaker 4 (34:48):
Which she does have a great smoky yeah she does so.

Speaker 2 (34:54):
Abraham van Helsing played by Anthony Hopkins, a doctor who
specializes obscure ailments.

Speaker 3 (35:01):
It's so wild that Anthony Hopkins has been old for
my entire life. It's like he's everyone go follow Anthony
Hopkins on Instagram.

Speaker 2 (35:11):
Oh okay, he's got a good presence.

Speaker 3 (35:13):
He's got a great presence. He'll just go live and
play the piano. Oh and be like hello everybody, and
just start playing the piano and a ton of cats.
He seems like a real sweety pie.

Speaker 2 (35:25):
Good for him. Yeah, okay. So he is called upon
to treat Lucy and he sees the bite marks on
Lucy's neck and he's like, yep, vampire all right. But Jack,
Quincy and Arthur, Lucy's three boyfriends.

Speaker 3 (35:42):
I know, they're all like, I want her to give
her blood. No me, no me.

Speaker 2 (35:46):
But they they're like pish posh vampires. That's not real.
Back at Dracula's castle, Jonathan is also having a rough
go of it. He is getting all of his blood
sucked out by the vampire ladies, but he manages to
escape and finds refuge in a convent. When the nuns
send a letter to Mina telling her to come to

(36:09):
the convent so that she and Jonathan can get married immediately.

Speaker 4 (36:13):
There's so much across European travel in this movie. They
are back and forth and back and forth.

Speaker 3 (36:19):
Yes, as someone who lives in.

Speaker 4 (36:22):
Europe, how did this exhausting the travel itineraries of this movie?

Speaker 3 (36:28):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (36:30):
Okay, So Lucy is becoming more and more vampirey. Then
Van Helsing starts to do some research on Dracula specifically,
and apparently his crimes are pretty well documented. It reminded
me of the vampire research scene in Twilight, Oh my God,
when she just googles.

Speaker 3 (36:49):
She buys a book and then just googles everything and anyways,
which is I was like, man, I do that all
the time, Like I want to have the book, but
but I'm not going to open it read it.

Speaker 4 (36:58):
One of our camp clues is if someone has to google,
you know, a freaky activity happening whenever someone googles what's
happening to me? Or strange powers or in Lindsay Lohan's case,
and I know who killed me, like twin stigmata.

Speaker 3 (37:15):
Bonus points if they're on Bang exactly Jeeves.

Speaker 2 (37:20):
Yeah. And so Van Helsing is basically doing the eighteen
hundreds version of a Google, and he's very excited because
I guess he's been pursuing Dracula his whole career and
this is his chance to finally hunt him down.

Speaker 3 (37:35):
I think, Yeah, he flips out, he's so excited, and
then he's like he's I think Anthony Hopkins is so
funny and as he's like, whoo, we gotta cut her
head off, or like he's just like, can't read the room.
It's very funny.

Speaker 2 (37:48):
On three separate occasions, he's like, yeah, no big deal,
I don't no, we don't need to give Lucy an autopsy.
We just need to chop her head off and drive
a stick through her heart. And then they do that
on screen, and then the he says it again later
you already did it, yeah, he tells. He's like, oh, yeah,
Mina your your best friend. Yeah, she was in a

(38:09):
great deal of pain and she and she's dead now,
but it's okay because we chopped off her head and
stabbed her in the heart, so no worries.

Speaker 4 (38:16):
And she's like, it's such a tonal choice for this movie,
which is otherwise so gothic, romantic, serious, erotic. And then
you just got Anthony Hopkins like yeah, in a different movie.

Speaker 3 (38:28):
Basically he's goofy clown. The book does like regularly mention
that Van Helsing is funny. Where like that whole thing,
where when was it Arth that can't Carrie elwa was Arthur?

Speaker 4 (38:43):
Yes?

Speaker 3 (38:44):
When he's like I'll give my blood, no big deal.
I'll give every last drop. And in the book they're like,
Van Helsing's so funny that he said, well, not every
last drop. He so, I don't know, bran Stucker thought
he was funny, didn't you go Mortensen play Van Helsing?
Or who plays Hugh Jackman?

Speaker 4 (39:03):
Hugh Jackman. I need to watch that movie again. I'm really.

Speaker 2 (39:08):
I haven't seen it since it came out in two
thousand and four.

Speaker 3 (39:12):
And then sure aged great.

Speaker 4 (39:14):
One thing I remember about that movie is that you
could see the boom mics. Oh my god, I remember.
I remember that from the cinema.

Speaker 2 (39:20):
I love that. And then is Underworld a spinoff from that?
Or is Kate Beckinstill playing a different Vampire Hunter.

Speaker 4 (39:28):
Character she's a vampire and Underworld and she's just not
a vampire Hunter and Van Helsing I think?

Speaker 3 (39:34):
And then isn't I Frankenstein a spinoff of Underworld?

Speaker 2 (39:37):
It's I don't know if it's a spinoff or if
it's just like made by the same guy. Okay, but
there's some connection, yeah, Okay, there's some connection, yes, of course. Okay,
So Dracula continues to seduce Mina. It seems like there's
some connection between her and Dracula's beloved Elisa Betta. Of course,

(39:58):
they're both played by when on a writer. I think
that Dracula thinks that Mina is like a reincarnation of
his wife.

Speaker 3 (40:06):
I think the movie thinks that. The movie probably thinks
that too, Yeah, yeah, yeah, and this is all that
whole thing is added, like the Elizabetha thing, and the
like erotic relationship between those two is just like new yeah, yeah, yeah, lots.

Speaker 2 (40:19):
To say there. Yeah, but Mina is like, oh shit,
I gotta go marry my fiance, but he must never
know about my new lover, Dracula aka Prince Vlad. And
so she writes a letter to Dracula breaking up with him,
and that feels like a very nineteenth century equivalent of
like breaking up over text.

Speaker 3 (40:40):
She does, and then she goes and he yeah, he
has a meltdown. I'm like wow.

Speaker 2 (40:45):
So Mina sets off to Romania to meet up with Jonathan.
She can't stop thinking about Dracula, though I would say
that he's penetrating her thoughts, and I get it they
have some of psychic connection. Dracula, meanwhile, is heartbroken and

(41:05):
crying his eyes out and looking even more like shit
he's got this like bat face situation happening. His tears
are blood. He is not having a good time. Mina
arrives at the convent and we see her in Jonathan's wedding.
Jonathan now has gray hair because he got all the

(41:26):
life force sucked out of him.

Speaker 4 (41:27):
You gotta sucked too hard. That is some good head.

Speaker 3 (41:31):
I can I can do that. Okay. Yeah, everyone's a
really good sport about the fact that he got sucked
up his great hair.

Speaker 4 (41:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (41:43):
In that scene where Van Helsing is telling Mina that
her best friend has been brutally murdered by him, he's
also like in front of Mina. He says, hey, Jonathan,
you know all those women that you fornicated with, You
didn't drink their blood, did you? And Mina's just like what, Okay.

Speaker 3 (42:06):
They just need to have a conversation about it because
Mina's love with Dracula.

Speaker 2 (42:10):
Come on, I have communication that This is just a
story about two women with varying relationships to their own
sexuality and their own notions of love, navigating polyamory. That's
what this movie is about anyway. So we see the
wedding and that is intercut with Dracula who is back

(42:33):
to looking like Emperor Palpatine coming after Lucy again. He
turns into a wolfy vampire again and seemingly kills Lucy.
Everyone thinks she's dead. There's a whole funeral that's.

Speaker 4 (42:47):
So good that those rivers of blood allen when he
bites it. She basically gets fountained in blood. It's so cool. Yeah,
and she's in like this gold le maay thing. Lucy
always has one tit out, yes, all.

Speaker 3 (43:03):
The way, lots of gratuitous she's always convalescing in like
a silver gown.

Speaker 4 (43:09):
One breast, just l.

Speaker 2 (43:14):
Every man who comes into the room. She's like, kiss me.
She makes out with so many people, it's amazing.

Speaker 4 (43:24):
Also, do you know about this wedding with Keanu and Winona.
So they wanted it to be authentic, so they took
them to a Greek Greek Orthodox church and filmed it
with a real Greek Orthodox minister. And then they realized
that actually they were potentially married.

Speaker 3 (43:39):
And then did they do anything about daughter?

Speaker 4 (43:41):
They think They were like, it's not legal, but maybe
in the eyes of God, we just got married.

Speaker 3 (43:46):
Yeah, I'd be okay with it.

Speaker 4 (43:48):
Yeah, that's cute.

Speaker 2 (43:49):
That would have been a dream come true for Winona
because she loved Keanu.

Speaker 4 (43:52):
So much, she apparently still texts them and writes some
letters saying dear husband, oh.

Speaker 3 (43:57):
I love them.

Speaker 4 (43:59):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (44:01):
Okay, so we think Lucy is dead, but Van Helsing
isn't so sure, so he takes Lucy's three boyfriends, Arthur, Quincy,
and Jack to her grave site. Her coffin is empty,
and then Lucy shows up full vampire.

Speaker 3 (44:15):
With an incredible outfit the look of the movie wowow wow,
and she looks like Queen Elizabeth ye, like it's incredible.

Speaker 4 (44:25):
She also has a medala does vampire Yes.

Speaker 3 (44:30):
Oh my gosh, it was just incredible.

Speaker 2 (44:32):
And she also has a an accessory, which is a
small child.

Speaker 4 (44:35):
That she's about to eat tasty tasty.

Speaker 2 (44:38):
But they stop Lucy and kill her by driving a
steak through her heart and chopping her head off, but
not before Lucy pukes blood all over Van Helsing's face.

Speaker 3 (44:48):
Fun fact, for some reason, speaking of Amidala chopping the
head off on screen was George Lucas's idea. I guess
originally they were like gonna cut away and you're like
a thud. But I guess George, because whatever those seventies
guys all knew each other, and he was like, no,
show the head politian vibes. He said, do it.

Speaker 4 (45:11):
Apparently they kind of did twenty seven minutes of gore
from this movie. WHOA, Yeah, they thought it was too gory.
I love it. I'd love to see that.

Speaker 3 (45:18):
I want to see what they cut. Yeah, because the
all of the this movie is like worth watching if
only for the practical effects. Because here's there's like a
single CGI.

Speaker 4 (45:27):
Effect in the entire time, and it looks terrible.

Speaker 3 (45:29):
It looks bad. It looks so bad. But even the
like freaky like smoke that has sex with Winona Ryder
was a practical effect.

Speaker 4 (45:37):
Whoa.

Speaker 3 (45:37):
It was like, it's like an in camera trick.

Speaker 2 (45:39):
Okay, well yeah, because Coppola was like, I don't want
any CGI. I don't want any kind of modern tech.
I want all like old Hollywood stuff. And he had
to like fire a bunch of people who were like, no,
it can't be done. And then he hired his son.

Speaker 4 (45:52):
Who was a magician, to do all the practical effects.

Speaker 3 (45:56):
That's good, but doesn't if you have a magician son
lying around.

Speaker 4 (46:03):
He's literally good for nothing else. This is.

Speaker 3 (46:09):
It's his big moment. Look look, you know there's criticisms
of nepotism. That's not one of them for me.

Speaker 2 (46:18):
Yeah, yeah, okay. So meanwhile, Jonathan and Mina have returned
to London. Jonathan sees Dracula and recognizes him. Then the
married couple have dinner with Van Helsing. This is that
very funny conversation where Van Helsing is just very nonchalantly
being like, yeah, I murdered your best friend soul. What

(46:39):
And then he's like, Okay, we have to form a
plan to hunt down and kill Dracula. So they hide
Mina away in doctor Jack's office and the men all
go to Dracula's estate to destroy it and try to
kill Dracula, who is taking on many forms at this point.
He's a human sized bat, he's green, missed. He turns

(47:04):
into a pile of rats at one point.

Speaker 4 (47:07):
What a great way to get out of a party.
Imagine you're just having a conversation that you don't want
to be in pile of rats.

Speaker 3 (47:15):
That is a good trick. That is a good thing
to have in your back pocket.

Speaker 2 (47:19):
I would do that on bad dates.

Speaker 3 (47:20):
Yeah, oh my god, that would be so great. Yeah wow,
I mean it sucks for the restaurant.

Speaker 2 (47:27):
But yeah, that becomes a rat TOTUOI situation.

Speaker 3 (47:29):
Oh my god, I hope that the rats are passionate
about cooking. If you flooded into a bunch of remis,
Oh goodness.

Speaker 2 (47:38):
Okay, So Dracula goes to Mina, who is very writhing
and horny, and he's like, by the way, I am
a soulless, undead monster. And she's kind of upset at first,
but then she's like, I don't care. I don't care
that you killed my best friend. I love you always,
and then he bites her. She drinks his blood so

(48:01):
that she'll become a vampire and be able to be
with him for all of eternity. But just then all
the men come in and Dracula escapes, and in order
to save Mina, they must destroy Dracula once and for all.
So Van Helsing hypnotizes Mina to figure out where Dracula is,
like he's using their psychic connection. They figure out he's

(48:23):
going back to Romania so he can grow strong again
in his homeland and like, I don't know, writhe around
in his dirt and get his powers back.

Speaker 3 (48:32):
Wow, Dragon, I.

Speaker 4 (48:35):
Love the shots of him in his coffin in his
gold le mat dress. But he's he's just like kind
of stuck and he knows maybe something's going wrong. But
just see his little face kind of cocooned.

Speaker 3 (48:48):
He even sleeps dramatic. It's just I just love it.

Speaker 2 (48:53):
So our friends take a train, hoping to beat Dracula
to Romania, who is traveling by boat, so it's like
a race to the castle. They bring Mina along, who
it's not feeling great, what with all the turning into
a vampire. She and Van Helsing separate from the others.

(49:14):
You know, she's turning into a vampire. She kisses Van Helsing.
She tries to kill him a little bit, as do
the other lady vampires, the ones who reside in Dracula's castle.
They've come out for a little snack, but Van Helsing
chops their heads off, not Mina's. She's still alive. Then
there's a big chase with everyone racing to the castle.

(49:36):
There's a big battle at the castle. Jonathan, Van Helsing, Arthur, Quincy,
and Jack are fighting Dracula and his servants. They stab
Dracula in the heart, so he's like kind of dying,
but Mina points a gun at her husband, being like, well,
when my time comes, will you do the same to me?

Speaker 3 (49:58):
And they're like no, oh, and then they only kill sluts,
you are virtuous, and then wait till you But what
if she wasn't okay? So they leave her there.

Speaker 2 (50:12):
Mina stays behind with Dracula, and her love fixes him
or something she does ultimately fix him. She lands the
final killing blow by, you know, driving the sword through
his heart and chopping off his head between confessions of love,
little kisses that she's giving him, tears that she's crying,

(50:33):
so it's not necessarily like a triumphant ending. She's like, no,
my other boyfriend, I have to kill him the end.
So let's take another quick break and we'll come back
to discuss, and we're back.

Speaker 3 (50:59):
I just wanted to say I forgot to mention in
my history of this movie that I watched this movie
on Pluto TV. Oh, same, did you also see the
same del Taco ad? Four thousand times?

Speaker 4 (51:13):
No?

Speaker 3 (51:13):
What commercial did you see? Four thousand times?

Speaker 4 (51:16):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (51:16):
I absolutely disassociate when I watch commercials, so I don't remember.

Speaker 3 (51:20):
It's really hard. I will forever associate this movie with
a Deltaco commercial. I was really kind of taken it
back by how many times I saw it, because I mean,
Pluto TV is the poor man's TV. They're both free,
but to b is reasonable sure Pluto TV. It was ever,
the runtime of this movie extended by forty five minutes

(51:44):
with the number of delta and it was the same
Del Taco ad every time. Oh I'm sorry it no,
it helped it. It had elevated the experience. It's so
like these it's getting shameless because it least, you know,
like when because we're now paying whatever. Now I'm like
being a boomer, but we used to like pay for cable,

(52:07):
and by we I mean our parents. At least you
get a variety of commercials. But now it's like you're
paying to watch the same Del Taco ad four thousand times.
And so anytime, yeah, I'm just every time I see
this poster, I'll be like dell, Yeah, yeah, of course.

Speaker 2 (52:27):
In any case, should we start with maybe some adaptation changes.
We've hinted at a few of them. Yeah, I have
not read the book, but once again, I've read the
Wikipedia synopsis of the book, so basically I know everything
there is to know. Jamie. Feel free to jump in

(52:48):
or fill in any gaps. But what I've gathered is
that it's a pretty faithful adaptation as far as major
story events. But there is a pretty major change in
the sense that in the movie there is a love
story between Dracula and Mina. They fall in love with
each other, and that is completely added. That's not in

(53:08):
the book.

Speaker 3 (53:09):
Yeah, the whole like traveling, time travel, reincarnation story is added.
And the weirdly this like it feels wild to say,
but the movie is less queer than the book, which
is something that I found, Like, there there is an essay,

(53:29):
Oh my gosh, it's on my telephone. Uh, there there's
an essay. I read to that and a wild desire
took me. The Homoerotic History of Dracula Byalia Schaefer. That
sort of traces how like Bromstoker is it Brom? Is
it Bram? Is it Brom? He's dead? Bromstoker was very

(53:53):
likely a closeted queer man. That is like what it
is heavily speculated he was married. He was, but the marriage,
like people argued, the marriage may not have even ever
been consummated.

Speaker 4 (54:06):
I imagine one hundred and fifty years later, people are
like sexless marriage.

Speaker 3 (54:10):
Yeah, exactly, you can't. And like, I mean, his best
friend was Oscar Wilde diedis died of syphilis. Wrote he
was a big Walt Whitman fan, and he would kind
of write Walt Whitman these like arguably love letters. It
is very likely that he was gay, and this was

(54:31):
maybe known in his community, but he wasn't obviously out.
But he started writing Dracula a month after Oscar Wilde
went to It was like, I kind of forgot about this,
but Oscar Wilde was punished by the government for being gay.
He was like, you know, subjected to do it hard labor.
And then Bromstoker starts writing Dracula a month after that.

(54:53):
There are lines in the book that are cut from
the movie, I think the most glaring, which I didn't
even honestly notice until I read this essay. And then
once you see it, you're like, oh, duh, you don't
see Gary Oldman Dracula sucking men. Uh, it's they change,

(55:14):
which is very much a feature of the book. You
only see heterosucking in the Coppola movie, and there's actually
a lot of hetero sucking at it. Like in the book.
They're they're not like feasting on Keanu and you know,
sucking him dry all day long. It's he's a prisoner. Yeah, Like,

(55:34):
there's a lot of hetero elements added for this movie
that is still very queer campy, but like it's interesting
that in the book there's more. The line that is
changed that Talia Schaeffer points out is when the vampire
gals are like around Jonathan and they're like, we're gonna,
you know, suck you off. They don't get to do

(55:54):
it in the book because Dracula person and says, how
dare you touch him? Any of you? How dare you
cast eyes on him? When I have forbidden it? Back,
I tell you all, this man belongs to me. Francis
for Copola cuts out this man belongs to me That
is not said in the movie. There's just these moments
that in the book, like in the context of who
Bromstoker was when he wrote it, feel intentional that are

(56:16):
taken out in the nineties. And then yeah, all the others,
all the lucy stuff, which is like another hetero element
to like make Dracula a straighter character.

Speaker 2 (56:26):
Arculate, right, right, So also I saw that in the
book the Lucy character is more like prim and proper
and not so horny.

Speaker 3 (56:39):
Yeah, I honestly do prefer Copola Lucy.

Speaker 1 (56:42):
Oh.

Speaker 3 (56:42):
Same.

Speaker 2 (56:43):
Yeah, I have lots to say about this rendition of
the character.

Speaker 4 (56:47):
But she's problematic as hell. But god, I'm so glad
she was.

Speaker 3 (56:50):
She went out having fun, she went on top, she
had three boyfriends at the time of death. That's great.

Speaker 2 (56:55):
Yeah, seriously. So those are the main adaptation changes as
far as I could tell, which led me to a
lot of the questions I had.

Speaker 3 (57:06):
Oh yeah, Oh. The only other thing is like, this
is the only adaptation that I mean, there's seven hundred.
It's probably not the only, but the only popular adaptation
of Dracula that actually makes an effort to like put
it in a place in history, because I like, all
monster stories are about the other. But the story of
Dracula is about like, or one of the facets of

(57:26):
the story is like anxiety around Eastern Europeans migrating west,
and like Dracula is the embodiment of this xenophobia, and
this anxiety.

Speaker 4 (57:36):
Potentially antisemitic as well. Right, Yeah, but I've also seen
that it he could represent like an anti feudalism sort
of perspective as well, and like the rise of the
bourgeoisie and you know, the rise of capitalism and meritocracy
as it were, against this kind of archaic form of government.

Speaker 3 (57:57):
That makes that makes especially in the context of like
characters like if Mina and Jonathan are representing England, especially
Jonathan because he's like so prim and proper that it
leads to his ruin Ye and oh that's interesting.

Speaker 4 (58:12):
Yeah, vampires can be anything you want. In the debate,
there's such a great standards, so fun versatile.

Speaker 3 (58:18):
There's a thesis paper about every aspect of Dracula.

Speaker 2 (58:22):
Yeah, okay, So these adaptation changes, particularly revolving around the
love story that's added in between Dracula and Mina. I
did not realize that until doing research for this episode,
that that was a component that is not in the
book and is added in for the movie. So I

(58:43):
was like, because as I was watching this, I was like,
what is like, is there a vampire spell that he's
casting on her? Like what what sort of like powers
and mind control, like seduction powers, et cetera. Does he
have slash that he's able to who use to sort
of exert power over both Lucy and especially Mina, And

(59:07):
is that more clear in the book, do we get
more kind of like world building and backstory about what
his powers are and how he's able to get Mina
to fall in love with him. Turns out that's not
in the book at all. So this is just a
thing in the movie where I'm like, Okay, now, is
it that he is using these like mind control powers

(59:31):
on her? Is it that she is a strong willed
person but like no one is a match for the
likes of Dracula, Or is it that, like, Mina is
a woman and this is a movie made by men,
and therefore they think that she's like mentally and emotionally
weak and fragile and susceptible to kind of maybe vampire

(59:54):
powers or maybe just like, oh, a man is paying
attention to me.

Speaker 4 (59:57):
I read it as she is the reincarnation, and as
she accesses that, she's accessing a past love. But I
don't think the movie does a great job of showing
or telling that. And so the first time I watched it,
I was like, wait, she loves them? When did that happen? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:00:19):
Yeah, it does happened so quickly.

Speaker 4 (01:00:22):
There's a few moments I got in this movie where
And I never say this, but like, I kind of
wish this movie told a bit more and showed a
bit less Like it there's a few times where it's like, wait,
what and who and how did that is? What's supposed
what am I supposed to be getting from this bit?
But I think that the movie thinks that there are
lovers across time that are finally reunited and that's what

(01:00:45):
he ignites in her, rather than it being a manipulation.

Speaker 2 (01:00:49):
Which is also the plot of the Haunted Mansion starring anyway, with.

Speaker 3 (01:00:54):
Another with another character named I think Elizabeth. I also weirdly, yeah,
I guess my. I feel like that that layering to
me felt like misguided. Like I want to believe it
was well intentioned, because I think, like, if I'm putting

(01:01:14):
on like nineteen ninety two brain, it's like they're expanding
the character of Mina but to give her another love interest.
But I think you can also see or I'm kind
of going off of like Wenoda Rider's take on it,
which is that like the expansion of the story is
intended to emphasize her repression and it's like through accessing

(01:01:36):
this past love with Dracula that she is able to
actually experience lust and sex, and it's almost like it
reminds me of We talked about this in the Twilight video,
citing the Natalie Wynn video about like the ravishment fantasy
and like she's able to be her horniest self through

(01:02:01):
this like mystical connection with this past love. I don't
like how it's written, and I do feel like it
ultimately kind of like is like how can we make
Dracula like straighter? Or like there are other ways to
do this, but I might get My read of it
was that it was intended to because her relationship with
Jonathan is like very sterile, Like.

Speaker 2 (01:02:24):
She's like, we've kissed, but nothing else.

Speaker 3 (01:02:26):
I did appreciate that they made out at the altar.
I was like, that's a move. That's a move. I
want to do that.

Speaker 2 (01:02:31):
But she's just an act. She's like basically pretending that
her Jonathan is Dracula exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:02:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:02:38):
I think that it was an attempt written and directed
by men to emphasize how repressed she was.

Speaker 4 (01:02:47):
Yeah, it's a nineties attempt to give this character a
bit more. But because it's in the nineties and it's
in this cocktail of like erotic thrillers. Like the way
we give her more is by making her horny, right,
I think there is something in interesting in that, And
I think the idea is about yeah, like repression and
how hardy can you be before you have to have
your head cut off? Like I think that's kind of

(01:03:08):
a fun a fun thing. But there's almost something more
feminist in the original text, which is just like men
as a girl who gets shit done, and she's a
scientist and she kills Dracula, and like she doesn't need
to have a romance with every man she meets.

Speaker 3 (01:03:22):
Yeah, that was like I do. I prefer the book
for that reason. Also, she has a job, she's like
they mention it in the movie, but it never really
comes up. But she teaches a school. Yeah, she's really smart.
She she's a very active like I think she's she's
kind of the protagonist of You could argue, I mean,
she's certainly a more active character than any of the

(01:03:42):
men trying to kill. You can argue that like her
and Van Helsing are like pretty equally active and powerful
when it comes to taking Dracula down. And in the
book it's not because she's like secretly in love with
him at a soul level. It's because she needs to
kill Dracula.

Speaker 2 (01:03:59):
It needs to be done.

Speaker 4 (01:04:00):
Maybe there would have been a way to explore her
being repressed and horny without it needing for her to
also have like true love with Dracula. Yeah, do you
know what I mean? Yeah, because that obviously is a
thing that existed at that time, and women, you know,
weren't allowed the access to their sexuality that they are now.
So that's a cool thing to kind of explore.

Speaker 2 (01:04:21):
But I don't want to know what francis for a
complos version of that is necessarily like.

Speaker 3 (01:04:27):
But I think it's interesting because I'm trying to remember
I So, I was not a huge fan of the
new Nose Ferratu, in which Lily Rose DApp plays the Mena.
She's called Ellen in that one for whatever, because it's
the rip off, but that's the Meana character, and I
feel like it for me at least, wasn't much better.

Speaker 2 (01:04:45):
I thought it's worse and we won't spoil it. We
won't spoil Nose for Atu, but people just have to
do a different episode not acting, because yeah, I thought
that was handled way worse.

Speaker 3 (01:04:54):
Right, So it's like, unfortunately, I think whatever it sucks
to have to use this yardstick of like random famous men,
and you know, I'm a I guess I'm a fan
of like Robert went to the Library Eggers. But I
thought that, yeah, like it was worse than twenty twenty four,
Like she is less active than she was, but also

(01:05:16):
she's most active in the original text. So it's I
don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:05:21):
The bottom line is the movie I don't think makes
it clear enough what is going on with her internally?
Like is it that she's being, you know, mind controlled
by these vampire powers? Is it that she is a
reincarnation of his past lover from five hundred years before
or whatever?

Speaker 4 (01:05:40):
Right?

Speaker 2 (01:05:41):
Is it that she's just a fragile woman, because there's
like there are different moments where when she first meets Dracula,
like on the streets of London, she's very firm with him.
She's just like, you're trying to get around buy a map, bitch, Like,
leave me alone. You're annoying and weird.

Speaker 3 (01:05:58):
I'm engaged, uh, like I have a fiance.

Speaker 2 (01:06:02):
And then all of a sudden she's like, oh, I'm sorry,
I've been so rude. Let's hang out And then they
go and watch porn together.

Speaker 3 (01:06:08):
I just wish it was clearer that if this is
what happens. I wish it was clearer that like that
happens because he's Jedi mind tricking her or whatever, because
I assume that's what he was doing. But it just
there's no.

Speaker 2 (01:06:20):
Visual like manifestation of that on screen.

Speaker 3 (01:06:23):
So I'm just like what I was like, we need
to have like a little she like like woooo right,
because it does just kind of I don't know. Yeah,
I feel like Coppola trusted to us a little bit
too much in that moment because it does just sort
of seem like a decision she makes versus something that's
like happening.

Speaker 2 (01:06:42):
To her, right, Like I need to see her eyes
glaze over or something, you know. So that was very
confusing and that made me I was just like, what
is happening? And I don't like the implications of this.
I guess it does make sense if she's a reincarnation,
but I don't love that either, Like I would much

(01:07:02):
prefer the version that we see in the original text.

Speaker 3 (01:07:06):
I mean that's like Crystal like you're saying, like there's
like there has to be a way to explore Like
I because I'm all for the like stuff that's not
in the book of like Nina wanting to explore her
sexuality and like find a means to explore sexual passion
that is just like not allowed and certainly not with
her like door husband. But this just is like not

(01:07:28):
the way to do it.

Speaker 4 (01:07:29):
What do you think the movie thinks about her sexuality?
Like That's the other thing I wasn't entirely clear on,
Like is it is it encouraging it or is it
saying that like because Lucy's punished, but like because it
just ends where it does. Like I don't know, does
she go back with Jonathan at the end or is
she like awake now and she's like I can do better.

Speaker 2 (01:07:50):
We don't know, we don't know, we don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:07:52):
Yeah, kind I hope she just goes off into just
like she gets three boyfriends.

Speaker 2 (01:07:57):
You know, I would love that for her.

Speaker 4 (01:07:59):
She's clearly not happy with that man, and the movie
makes it clear that she's not. But I don't know,
does the movie kind of think she needs to get
back in her box hardness? I say, you know what
I mean?

Speaker 3 (01:08:12):
Yeah, yeah, because it is like emphasized in the movie
that she's like her quote unquote value is her virtuousness,
and it doesn't really come all the way around on
that to say, like, I think that it feels like
the movie still thinks that at the end. But an idea,
it's confusing.

Speaker 2 (01:08:30):
Yeah, it's a little bit ambiguous, right, because I mean,
if you compare her with Lucy, it's the classic kind
of Madonna horror complex thing where Mina is virtuous and
she's virginal, and but she still falls in love with Dracula,
and therefore she's also polyamorous because she loves Jonathan. Maybe

(01:08:53):
we're led to believe she also loves Dracula. She's emotionally
cheating on both of them, but she can be saved
because she's the more pure, virginal one. You know, she
gets a redemption. She's the one to kill Dracula. Her
love releases everyone from like the darkness of it all

(01:09:13):
versus Lucy, who she's horny, she's having sexy dreams, she's
far more sexually curious. She's got three boyfriends lusting after her,
and then she is punished because of that by being killed.
But I think she's such an interesting character because, yes,
the story does ultimately punish her for her horniness. But

(01:09:39):
before that, she still has these three men who are
like tending to her. No one's really judging her. They're
not like, well, you deserve this for having sex with
a wolf.

Speaker 4 (01:09:50):
But it does seem like Dracula's decides she's an easy target.
Like there's almost like right, there's a sense that she's disposable,
and as soon as she dies, it's it's like this
van helsing those jokes about cutting her head off. It's
like he's not mourning her because well, she was a slut,
right right, she got what she The movie kind of
is is very she got what she deserved or but

(01:10:13):
I agree, I.

Speaker 2 (01:10:15):
Wish there was like a slightly different, just version of her.

Speaker 3 (01:10:20):
Where I get stuck again, is that like all that
is true, but Lucy and Mina have a great relationship
the whole time, and like so it's like Lucy does
feel very clearly judged in a way that like elevates.
It's sort of presented in the book of like poor Lucy,

(01:10:43):
that sucks, but like this is like she dies because
she wanted three boyfriends. But in both like their friendship
is so strong. They're not like unlike a lot of
Madonna Hort stories. They're not turned against each other, they're
not herod to each other and their friendship. There's like
a scene that I really kind of was like, oh

(01:11:04):
my gosh, is that Mina wants to stay with Lucy
instead of to go rescue her like draculate ass husband.
Where she's like, I don't want to go, and Lucy's like, no,
you have you have to go get your dragula ass husband,
like you have to. And but but it's like against
Mina's better judgment, like she her love for Lucy is

(01:11:25):
stronger than like her love for this guy she married.
And so I do like that at very least for
all of the movie's faults, like that friendship is intact
and that like mutual respect between them isn't intact, because
I feel like it was like a lesser adaptation would
be like and there's even like Mina says like, oh,
like Lucy's so pretty, but it's not like ugh, I

(01:11:49):
can't believe how hot she is. She's like it's it's
just like wow, my beautiful friend. You know, it is sweet,
Like I wish I was.

Speaker 2 (01:11:56):
As pretty as Lucy and I and all these men
doored me. It's not like jealousy or envious. It's just
more just like good for her than everyone loves her.

Speaker 4 (01:12:06):
It's so sweet that Lucy's like kind of encouraging her
sexuality as well, like there's something very yeah, lovely about that.
She's like, look at his book, isn't it fun? And
she's like, you don't need to be ashamed?

Speaker 3 (01:12:17):
Like right, yeah, but then the plot punishes her for
feeling that way. It's so hard, I know.

Speaker 2 (01:12:22):
Yeah, I love the scene where they're flipping through Arabian
nights and like looking at all the horny drawings and
and mean is like I could never can people even
do this unless like, yeah, I did it last night.
I love it.

Speaker 3 (01:12:38):
But yeah, I like that. I like that's it. You know,
it's very stretched, but I like, you know, that's a
dynamic I'm familiar with of like your friend that had
sex before you being like it's awesome, try it out sometimes,
like hekay, I.

Speaker 2 (01:12:56):
Wanted to talk about. So you know, there's there's different
interpretations of the book as we discussed, as far as
like fears around immigration and like Eastern Europe infiltrating Western
Europe and like ethnic otherness and things like that. So

(01:13:17):
what the movie does is basically, the good guys in
the story are white Anglo Saxon Christians from England or
I think vi Van Helsing is Dutch, but you know,
it's all like.

Speaker 3 (01:13:31):
Colonizer vibes for sure.

Speaker 2 (01:13:34):
And then the bad guys, the bad people in the
movie are from Eastern Europe, Turkish people and Romani people,
because you get this villainization of Romani people. This is
something we've discussed a lot on the podcast. In this movie,
they are depicted as the like mindless loyal servants of Dracula.

(01:13:57):
They're doing his evil bidding for reasons unknown, maybe that
he's promised them eternal life or not sure. But also
the g slur is used repeatedly throughout the movie. And
then you have within the first thirty seconds of the movie,
you've got like voiceover that's villainizing Islam because it's like,

(01:14:19):
oh yes, uh, Muslim Turks invade Romania, threatening all of christiendom.

Speaker 3 (01:14:23):
Right. So the way that like historical context is brought
in is just offensive, which is like irritating, not surprising,
But it's like Coppola had such an agenda to like
show that Italians are not the stereotypes they're presented as
but any nationality that he doesn't associate with, He's like,

(01:14:44):
they are they are You're like, heyah right, yeah, I
mean and that's like an element of this story that
if you want to do a book adaptation, that's like
something that you can really like move in a different
direction in a more thoughtful way, and this movie sort
of shows it.

Speaker 4 (01:15:02):
Yeah, what else I'd love to shout out the costume designer, yes,
and the production design in general, but the costume designer
on this movie was Ako Ishioka, who won Yes, but
she won an Oscar for costume design in this I
think these are some of the best costumes I have
ever seen in a movie.

Speaker 3 (01:15:22):
Man that she also did my favorite. She did mirror
mirror to the best Enderella costumes ever. She's so good.

Speaker 4 (01:15:30):
So the embarrassing thing that I thought of when I
saw this was like this, these might be the best
costumes I have ever seen in a movie. And I
was like, what else is up there? And I was
like the cell And I was like, that's embarrassing, intrusive
thoughts that I've just had, And so then I googled
and I was like, no, they are really good. And
then it turns out she did those.

Speaker 3 (01:15:45):
Yeah, she did a lot, she would do it. I
was so sad to see that she'd passed, because I mean, god,
so good.

Speaker 4 (01:15:53):
So she was a graphic designer by trade, so she's
actually got a Grammy as well for album art design,
and she nearly she was nominated for two Tony's for
costume design as well, So she nearly had an egot
in but in the sphere of design, which is so cool.

Speaker 3 (01:16:09):
That's amazing, so cool. Only musicians do that, that's amazing.

Speaker 4 (01:16:14):
And also I just want to shout out that she
didn't ad for a Japanese department store called Parco with
Faye done Away and it's just Fade done Away one
long shot of her unwrapping and eating a hard boiled egg.
It is so surreal. Wow. Yeah, but anyway, Yeah, go
check out acho Isshioka's work. She did a she did

(01:16:34):
a music video for B York. Yeah, it's just really cool.

Speaker 3 (01:16:38):
It's beautiful. I appreciated that. Yeah, I was looking for
like more about like how Coblu was like choosing who
to collaborate with, and I guess he was just like,
find me someone weird. Yeah, and they're like, we've got
the gal, We've got her, and it's oh my god.

Speaker 4 (01:16:54):
She came Apparently she came to his attention because she'd
done some posters for Apocalypse Now that were yeah kidding, yeah,
and you can actually see those and they're really great
as well. So she was not a costume designer before
this movie. He just hired her because she was an
amazing graphic designer that rocks.

Speaker 2 (01:17:12):
I was obsessed with Dracula's suit of armor in the
opening set because it looks like, yeah, it looks like
like muscles with.

Speaker 3 (01:17:21):
The skin removed, you know, it's like very sinewy.

Speaker 2 (01:17:23):
I was like, that looks like the Bodies Exhibit.

Speaker 4 (01:17:26):
Yes, real bodies.

Speaker 3 (01:17:28):
Yeah, but it's like.

Speaker 2 (01:17:29):
Really beefy and bulky.

Speaker 4 (01:17:31):
And I was just like, what is this?

Speaker 2 (01:17:32):
And his helmet is wild?

Speaker 3 (01:17:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:17:35):
And then again also just all of the makeup design,
like the every I think every monster look he does
is like a hit. It is so good.

Speaker 3 (01:17:43):
It's that lucy outfit. Really, I gasped, Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:17:49):
So thank thank you this movie for all of that.

Speaker 3 (01:17:53):
Indeed, the last thing that I had I was like
ragging my brains for what movie we covered recently were
this also came up? I'm curious what you both think
about it, because this is Frau. But when this movie
came out, frank Rich, frank Rich, who you know, not

(01:18:16):
a not a smitless record, but he is the producer
of Succession, so no, he's anyways, but he wrote about
this movie in relation to the AIDS epidemic? What movie?
Where were we talking about recently? Where it also was?

Speaker 2 (01:18:33):
It was was an interview with a vampire.

Speaker 3 (01:18:35):
No, it was more recent than that. I got a
but but in that case, the movie was I think
the director was asked like, were you trying to like
make a comment on the AIDS epidemic? And he was like,
oh no, oh my god, because it because if he was,
it would have looked really bad.

Speaker 2 (01:18:53):
Was the schol Yeah, I remember the conversation.

Speaker 3 (01:18:57):
In this case, I wasn't able to find any reference
of Copola acknowledging that that was something that he intended,
But it was definitely something that was mentioned around the
discourse of this movie when it came out, and it
is still talked about now. There's an article I have
here from twenty twenty one from Film Days by a

(01:19:17):
writer named Joshua Sorenson who sort of reflects on how
he feels like this movie was in conversation with the
AIDS epidemic in nineteen ninety two. And yeah, I just
wanted to say that. I think it's like, I don't know, Yeah,
it feels it's kind.

Speaker 4 (01:19:36):
Of a big blind spot, especially because the movie does
kind of collate vamporism with an STI. There's like because
Van Helstein talks about like civilization, yeah, and there's this.
It's all very like vampism is very sexually transmitted in
this movie. So it is kind of weird that it
exists in this time where you know, it's such an

(01:19:57):
incredible cause of death and and the movie's kind of like,
we're not worried about that. Yeah, we are going to
make the allusions to it being sexually transmitted.

Speaker 2 (01:20:08):
Yeah, I mean a lot of horror movies. It feels
like a lot of horror movies, either maybe intentionally such
as perhaps It follows draws this parallel, or people watching
and consuming the movie draw the parallel, right, and that
is you know, perhaps a cultural problem where because that

(01:20:32):
ultimately villainizes sti's and the people who have them. So
for anyone who's like, oh, yeah, obviously, you know, vampires
sucking each other or sucking other people and transmitting their
vampirism and all of that being horrible, and that's the
same thing as contracting an STI it's not the best.

Speaker 4 (01:20:57):
I guess that's maybe just another example of FFC, like
degaying this.

Speaker 1 (01:21:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:21:04):
Yeah, and so a lot of the gay stuff that
was there in the book, or that kind of was
an obvious parallel that you could make, has been kind
of omitted.

Speaker 3 (01:21:13):
Yeah. I have a bit from this piece by H.
Joshua Swords and where he I mean, he gets into
it at length, but he sort of draws, I mean,
he mostly draws it to Lucy's character and mentions the
sort of de queering that FSC does. But he says quote.
But even if Dracula's de queering is an attempt to
capture the increasing universality of the HIV AIDS epidemic, it

(01:21:37):
is textually undermined as the only two characters to contract
disease on screen are the ones who are queer coded
Mina and Lucy. Because this piece is really pushing the
mean and Lucy agenda, the film is caught between two mindsets.
It seemingly aims to move beyond the stigmatic relationship between
the LGBTQ plus community and HIV AIDS and the public consciousness,
but that intention is not supported by the framing. The

(01:21:58):
fact that Mina and Lucy contracted only because they sought
it out recalls the I don't have it, do you
mentality that led to the spread of the epidemic in
the first place. I don't know what to make of this.
I kind of am glad FFC has never commented on it.
I don't really care to know what he thinks.

Speaker 4 (01:22:15):
Yeah, and maybe in a sense he wasn't qualified to
talk about it anyway, So maybe we're maybe we're better
off that he steered clear.

Speaker 3 (01:22:22):
Yeah, I think so. And also it's like I think again,
going back to the original text, it was I guess
blood transfusions were super new at the time, and some
prem Stoker wasn't thinking much harder than like, this is wild.
What if I made all these guys do it? Oh?

Speaker 2 (01:22:38):
Yeah, the part where I think it's Arthur and then
one of the other boyfriends gives, like donates blood to
Lucy and I'm just like, do you even know what
your blood type is?

Speaker 3 (01:22:47):
You?

Speaker 2 (01:22:47):
Are you the universal donor? Do you have a matching
blood type is Lucy.

Speaker 3 (01:22:50):
That's our typet universal donor. Yeah, I just funny to
say that that was an element of the conversation. Yeah,
I don't know what to make it, and yeah, yeah
nor I. Anyways, that was I think that was the
last thing that I had.

Speaker 2 (01:23:08):
Yeah, I just love that. Like every thirty to ninety
seconds in this movie, there's just something on screen where
you're like, oh my god, either a costume or some
special effect or blood gushing from something or blood being puked,
or furry palms of hands or Dracula climbing up the

(01:23:32):
wall of the castle or anything like that.

Speaker 4 (01:23:35):
Such a dense movie, there's like so many shots. Well
well said, but yeah, I think I hope it's I
don't know if we've really clarified when we've been talking
about this, but this movie is so camp. It's so silly,
Like as much as it's got big themes and it's
kind of got like this lush production that makes it

(01:23:57):
feel like a prestige movie, it's also very very very silly,
And I mean the women have nothing to do basically there.
They most spend most of the movie gasping, writing and
gasping with a boob out like that is the role
for a woman in this movie. Gary Oldman is like
campus tits in it. Just everything he does, the bad accents.

Speaker 3 (01:24:23):
Why does cast British people?

Speaker 4 (01:24:24):
What are you doing?

Speaker 2 (01:24:25):
She pronounced win on a writer pronounces the word clerk
like clerk.

Speaker 4 (01:24:31):
There's also a moment where she says home we went to.

Speaker 2 (01:24:34):
His then again, oh my gosh, and then oh, I
forget what Keanu's line read. Oh he keeps saying beaudapest.
I probably knows maybe how you pronounce it. And also
we love Keanu. But his excuse for this was I

(01:24:54):
was tired. He was like, you just did point break.
I just did a lot of movies in a row.
I kind of sleepy, so that's why I didn't do
a good job.

Speaker 3 (01:25:04):
You're like, that's what you say in the Francis Ford
Coulful movie, You're sleepy, wake up. I love it.

Speaker 4 (01:25:12):
Gary Oldman, I think does potentially the best evil cackle
that has ever been on screen. It's good Van Helsing,
very camp.

Speaker 3 (01:25:19):
Oh my gosh. I think Hopkins brings it.

Speaker 4 (01:25:22):
Although he might be the worst person in this movie,
like the worst man, what do you mean in a
movie full of bad men? I think Van Helsing might
be kind of the character.

Speaker 3 (01:25:32):
Yeah, oh yeah, it was like not the worst performance,
no no, no, no, no no no.

Speaker 4 (01:25:35):
He does a great job. He does a great job.
But it's like he's the like he's the toxic mask presence.
Like he's kind of worse than Dracula in a way.
Dracula is eating a lot of people, but Van Helsing's
just like Christian values but also kind of gleefully killing ladies.

Speaker 3 (01:25:52):
Right. Yeah, And we didn't get much into the like
religious aspects, but I feel like it's like very much
in conversation with the like z a phobia of like
basically any non Christian religion is the occult. You're like, ok.

Speaker 2 (01:26:08):
Van Helsing describes Lucy. He says, after she's been bitten
and turned into a vampire. He says, Lucy is not
a random victim attacked by mere accident. She is a
willing recruit, a breathless follower, a wanton follower, a devoted disciple.
She is the devil's concubine. Basically just like.

Speaker 3 (01:26:27):
He's literally and I don't know why, like that that
did make me laugh when you because because he's literally
like kind of jumping up and down. He's like walking
away and saying all this fucked up stuff. He's like,
she's married to the devil, and he's like also.

Speaker 4 (01:26:43):
Doing something like I want an all female rock band
called Devil's Concubine.

Speaker 3 (01:26:52):
We can work with this, yes.

Speaker 2 (01:26:54):
Anthony Hopkins also plays the like clergyman at the very
beginning of the movie. Oh yeah, that him. He's in
like a scraggly wig and stuff. But yeah, he's the
one where Dracula comes back from impaling thousands of people
and he's like, I denounce God and Anthony Hopkins priest
is like no, don't stop it. And it's pretty good.

(01:27:19):
Uh yeah, there's just I love the like vampire orgy
room in the castle.

Speaker 3 (01:27:24):
Yeah yeah, where is.

Speaker 4 (01:27:26):
The like prestige HBO series about Dracula's brides that will
justice for them? They the way they died was very
lackluster for me.

Speaker 3 (01:27:36):
Yeah, I could have used again, and like I could
he used some names. I could have used some names,
could names and some stories? How did you become a vampire?

Speaker 4 (01:27:45):
I'd love to see their story. Wow, just because they're
just seemed to be having a great time. They're letsing off,
they they eat the occasional man, they eat the occasional baby,
the eat the occasional horse. Yes, this horrible Christian man
comes and cuts their heads off.

Speaker 3 (01:28:01):
It's just give him a chance.

Speaker 2 (01:28:03):
Got to know them seriously.

Speaker 3 (01:28:06):
Yeah. Meanwhile, we're celebrating the boring nuns. They're handing on crucifixes, boring,
get a life, eat a horse.

Speaker 2 (01:28:15):
I did appreciate the very least that, even though Mina
in the movie, you know, basically just forced into this
love story that was invented by the movie, which was
written by James V. Hart. Yes, so he adapted the
book and wrote the screenplay for this movie.

Speaker 3 (01:28:37):
He's a His other credits are oh yeah, he did Hook.
And then he also went on to do Mary Shelley's Frankenstein,
which is always a story that she'd be adapted by
a woman. Come on, come on, But for what it's worth,
even though she's not credited again as a one on ahead,
we took this script to Francis Ford Coppola and was like,

(01:29:00):
what do you think? And then.

Speaker 4 (01:29:03):
As an apology for dropping out of gold Father three, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:29:06):
Which which only I mean and good call by Winona
on that one, because they didn't Sophia Coppola.

Speaker 4 (01:29:13):
Replace her and Apparently the reason I haven't seen famously,
haven't seen any FF. But apparently the reason she's so
bad in it is because she had one day to
prep for the role and that was a case of
nepotism maybe gone wrong.

Speaker 3 (01:29:28):
That's it, Yeah, that's It's one thing to hire your.

Speaker 4 (01:29:31):
Magician's son, but she was just doing her dad a favor.

Speaker 3 (01:29:34):
I know, I yeah, that's I'm that's Francis for Copla's fault.
That's not God because she wasn't she like a teenager
like she was. Also, Winona Writer is an amazing actor.
She's been like nominated for She was really on a
roll before they were like, we have to kill her
because she shoplifted. Kill her, then kill me. I shoplift

(01:29:54):
all the time.

Speaker 2 (01:29:56):
But anyway, so obviously Mena's role is change for the movie,
but I do appreciate that she doesn't. She's never like
well not never, but she doesn't ultimately become like the
damsel in distress. I feel like this type of movie
would have Oh, Dracula kidnaps her and then they have
to go and rescue her. Rather she's bait, which isn't

(01:30:18):
better really, but but at least at least they.

Speaker 3 (01:30:21):
Bring her along. It makes me sad to be like,
but at least she knows she's bait because often they're like,
she has no idea, don't tell her right, right, and
again like not to but like in the most recent
Dracula adaptation, the Lily Rose depth character is like inside
for ninety percent. I remember when she left the house
on purpose and I was like, but like, you know, Mina,

(01:30:46):
it's still not as active as the original book that
was written one hundred years before it came out.

Speaker 5 (01:30:51):
But.

Speaker 4 (01:30:53):
She does. She does do the conclusion of the movie
like it's her, which is cool.

Speaker 2 (01:30:59):
Yeah, indeed, does anyone have anything else they'd like to discuss?

Speaker 3 (01:31:05):
That's all I have.

Speaker 2 (01:31:07):
I guess one last thing where Coppola brought in someone
to coach Winona Ryder and Sadie Frost, who plays Lucy
during their like erotic scenes, because he felt uncomfortable discussing
sexuality with these young actors, so he brings in an

(01:31:30):
acting coach named Greta Seacat, which doesn't seem like quite
the same thing as a like intimacy coordinator. But I
don't think that existed writer, right, But at least it
was something. It was some attempt to hopefully, and I
don't know how that went exactly with this acting coach,
but at least there was some attempt.

Speaker 4 (01:31:52):
Apparently the same thing happened with the Brides of Dracula,
who had all been cast on the basis that they
would be nude in the movie, but then when it
came time to shoot, everyone was too nervous to ask
them to take their clothes off.

Speaker 3 (01:32:03):
Oh wow.

Speaker 4 (01:32:04):
Yeah, and so I think he ended up getting his
magicians on to ask them. Well, so maybe that's why
he ended up hiring Greta.

Speaker 3 (01:32:13):
Yeah. Never never, no offense to any listening male magicians,
but never underestimate the delusional confidence of a male magician
to ask you to do something you don't want to do.

Speaker 4 (01:32:28):
I think potentially they did want to do they didn't
mean to it, but.

Speaker 3 (01:32:32):
It's like the magician. You dispatched the magician. It's just
it's insulting. I do appreciate at least, I mean again,
it's such a little thing. But like a director that
knows their limits, that is like, this is out of
my comfort zone, which is like directors are entitled to
have things outside of their comfort zone as long as
they take care of it.

Speaker 4 (01:32:53):
I've got some I've got some kind of warm, fuzzy
feelings for FFC after researching this. I have no idea
what he's like Beyond this. He's probably done some really
horrible stuff. But apparently even when this movie was coming out,
he was so afraid of finding out if it was
a success because his career was really riding on it.

Speaker 3 (01:33:09):
Right.

Speaker 4 (01:33:09):
He took all of his family on holiday and he
couldn't look at it. He was too stressed and scared.
And he finally got his wife to be, like to
check the box office and she's like, add it up,
it's a huge hit. But he was just like, really
scared and nervous.

Speaker 3 (01:33:24):
I for what I can tell, and like, I'm listeners
sent me straight if I'm wrong. He's a relatively scandal
free director.

Speaker 4 (01:33:32):
Cool.

Speaker 3 (01:33:33):
I was also very like, he's not my favorite director
by any stretch of the imagination, but I just like
I do like watching him talk. I like that he
make takes big, weird swings even when I don't like them.
And I really like that he made Anthony Hopkins play
zip Zapps off like it does seem like, you know, comparatively,
especially in the generation of directors that he's a part of.

(01:33:55):
He seems like a relatively sweet person.

Speaker 2 (01:33:58):
Right, He's coming off of making what's largely considered some
of the greatest movies in American film history, between the
first two Godfather movies and Apocalypse Now, so you think
that would inflate his ego so much that he would
just be a terror on set. But it seems like
maybe not so.

Speaker 3 (01:34:20):
Good guy, question the bars, but it is, I mean,
his career is there there. Guest of the show Maya
made a video when Megalopolis came out that had like
traced his like wild history and like movie finance, where
like if he didn't have the winery, he'd be so

(01:34:41):
fucked many times over. But like that, even after one
of the other Copla movies we've covered that I always
forget is directed by him, is Peggy Sho got married
and like so he I don't know if like that's
like a real artist. That's so cool that he was
still like trying shit out and is still trying shit
that is often straight up bad, but it definitely not safe,

(01:35:05):
Like this movie is not making safe choices.

Speaker 2 (01:35:08):
Everyone, like producers, critics, everyone in the industry basically thought
this movie would be a huge flop at the box office,
and we're like surprised that it wasn't because it was
made for a budget of forty million dollars, which seems
less than I would have thought because of how much
like just money you see on screen with the practical
sets and effects and costumes and all that.

Speaker 3 (01:35:29):
Which he dealt with by shooting and this ended up.
I thought it was like a creative choice because he
was like paying homage to the original Monster movies or whatever.
But he shot it entirely on sound stages. I think
it looks awesome because it shot on sound stages. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:35:42):
Well, part of that was because he had gone over
budget and like time scheduling for his previous movies, and
he's like, I don't want to make anyone mad again.
I'm gonna do it, play it safe and like shoot
inside kind of thing.

Speaker 4 (01:35:57):
This way, the studio execs could keep an eye on him,
and they could visit set every day as well and
see what he was doing.

Speaker 3 (01:36:03):
They're like, okay, do we do we have is Reeves
playing zipzabsop? Good good job.

Speaker 2 (01:36:09):
But anyway, made for a budget of forty million dollars
and grossed two hundred and nineteen million dollars.

Speaker 3 (01:36:15):
In nineteen ninety two dollars, it was one of the
biggest movies of the year.

Speaker 2 (01:36:18):
Yeah, it beat out like Back to the Future two
and damn so good for him.

Speaker 4 (01:36:23):
Do you think this movie is remembered particularly, not as.

Speaker 2 (01:36:28):
Much as I would say. Obviously has a cult following.
Obviously people return to it, but I feel like it
doesn't get brought up quite as much as you would expect.

Speaker 4 (01:36:37):
That's kind of how I feel too.

Speaker 3 (01:36:38):
Yeah, I've been I until you started raving about it.
I don't know if I even knew it existed till
like the last couple of years. But also, the Dracula
space is very crowd Yeah, there's a lot of there's
a lot of competition in Dracula movies, but this is
like definitely one of my favorites. Yeah, it's number six
on Vultures Draculas.

Speaker 4 (01:37:00):
Wow, number six, Sorry, what's number one?

Speaker 3 (01:37:03):
I think it's the original nose fora tu Let me
check which you know, fair.

Speaker 4 (01:37:08):
Enough Normalstracula two thousand.

Speaker 3 (01:37:10):
This is technically Dracular rankings Dracula Performance Rankings. Gary Oldman
comes in at number six.

Speaker 4 (01:37:17):
Oh wow.

Speaker 3 (01:37:18):
Number five is Christopher Lee, who apparently played Dragula in
Like Movies fifteen.

Speaker 2 (01:37:23):
Oh wow, he definitely was in like A nineteen fifty nine.

Speaker 3 (01:37:26):
I want to say yes, he started playing Dragula in
nineteen fifty eight and played him all the way through
nineteen seventy six, So maybe that's out of sheer volume
actually knows Vatu. The original Nos Foraratu is number four.

Speaker 2 (01:37:38):
Number three played by Max Shrekrap Exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:37:42):
Number three is William Marshall in Blacula and screen Blacula Scream.
Number two is something I haven't seen klaus Kinski in
the Werner Herzog remake of Nos Farratu. He's supposed to
be the most soulful Draculum. And then number one's bella logo. Fine, fine,
I get it sure below below anyways, it's a crowded space,

(01:38:06):
the Dracula space. Yeah, where does Dard Butler? Dr Butler
comes in at number twenty nine.

Speaker 2 (01:38:13):
Brutal, brutal of how many.

Speaker 3 (01:38:17):
Thirty two?

Speaker 4 (01:38:20):
That makes me want to see that movie so much more.

Speaker 3 (01:38:23):
It sounds like a truly perfect candidate for your show.

Speaker 4 (01:38:26):
Yea, yeah, I think Dracula's on a plane at one point,
Oh my god, you should I think instead of the Demeter.
It's a plane.

Speaker 3 (01:38:36):
Have you seen I Frankenstein? No, Oh my god, you've
got to cover Bye Frankenstein. Yeah, it's that but Frankenstein.
And it's Aaron what's his name, Aaron Eckhart, coming off
of his playing two Face. He's going to start a
franchise and it does not happen. It's nice, is there,
fab It's great?

Speaker 2 (01:38:56):
That's awesome. Well, does the movie past the Bechdel test?

Speaker 4 (01:39:01):
Real thing?

Speaker 3 (01:39:02):
I do think it does.

Speaker 2 (01:39:03):
Okay, here's what I've concluded. I obviously, Mina and Lucy
talk quite a bit in a number of different scenes,
and sometimes they're talking about a typewriter or a dream
or a book, but it's almost always in the context
of like, oh, you're writing, you're using your typewriter to
write a letter to a man, or I had a

(01:39:23):
dream about hetero sex with a man. So, and then
they more explicitly talk about Jonathan, about Lucy's three boyfriends,
about Dracula. So it's very even if there's like a
kind of almost technical pass, I feel like the context
or the subtext is always still about.

Speaker 4 (01:39:42):
Yeah, men, and like the point of everymen scene is
ends up about sex or men, right, I think.

Speaker 3 (01:39:48):
So, Yeah, let me see what the technical passes were,
because I did kind of forget, Oh.

Speaker 2 (01:39:52):
Did you consult Bechdel test dot com, Bechdel test dot com,
scholarly journal.

Speaker 3 (01:39:58):
Yeah. People think we spend the who whole show trying
to figure this out and sometimes we don't even remember
to do it. Attention it does. Yeah, so I think
it's just technical passes. I guess that, Like, I mean,
it doesn't pass the Bechdel test if by in our estimation.
I do think that like the only thing I could
give it sort of a like it's trying is like

(01:40:19):
to women talking about passion and lust during a time
where that wasn't permissible, but it is connected obviously to
like hetero lust, but polyamorous hetero ust Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:40:31):
I mean, does it count if they're just like we're
both horny when that.

Speaker 3 (01:40:35):
Wasn't legal, like get your head cut off? In this culture?

Speaker 2 (01:40:38):
Does it pass the test when they kiss each other?
Because I would argue that kissing is communication, It's true.

Speaker 4 (01:40:47):
The language of love, It's true.

Speaker 3 (01:40:49):
I think I think you could I would agree to
a soft pass argument, but like it's not you know,
if we had to talk about it for this long,
it's not a great bath.

Speaker 2 (01:41:00):
But examining it through the Bechdel cast Nipple scale, this
scale where we rate the movie zero to five nipples
based on examining it through an intersectional feminist lens. Ooh,
this one's tricky. I think it's sort of like a
split down the middle. For me, I would give it
ten out of ten on the Horny scale. I would

(01:41:22):
give it probably like an eight out of ten on
the rompometer. She'll give it like, actually, probably two nipples
on the nipples scale because of the adaptation changes made
specifically to Mina's character, making her less active, forcing her
into another romantic situation which might involve coercion, We're not sure,

(01:41:48):
might just be that she's a reincarnation of someone, but
still it feels there's like coersive elements to it that,
you know, Dracula's playing Jedi tricks on her or whatever. Unclear.
The representation of Romani people and the kind of albeit
brief but villainization of Islam should have been deleted from

(01:42:13):
the movie, and yet it wasn't. Yeah, I don't know.
I just wish that the movie was more gay and
less let's punish women for having sexuality. So two nipples,
but maybe that's too much even but I just it's
so camp, it's so awesome, the production design and the

(01:42:36):
costume design all the time. I know that doesn't factory
into the nipples scale, but like it's just hard not
for me to be obsessed with this movie. Ye, so yeah,
I'll give it two nipples, and I'll give one to
Winona Ryder's pronunciation of Clark. She's like, oh, Jonathan doesn't

(01:42:57):
want me to marry him because she thinks that he's
not worthy because he's just a law Clark. And then
I'll give my oh, I'll give my other nipple to
this scene where Lucy has approached Quincy and she's like,
oh my god.

Speaker 4 (01:43:17):
It's so big.

Speaker 3 (01:43:19):
Can I touch it? And then it's just mean of
being like, my friend Lucy is amazing. I love that.

Speaker 2 (01:43:28):
Yeah, and it ends up being about Quincy's knife, but
it's really about.

Speaker 3 (01:43:32):
Why do you think that a lesser movie would not
to start the episode again, but like a lesser movie
would make Lucy out to be this like big joke,
like broad, you know, slutty character, and she's not that.
She's not punished. She's punished about as as one could be.
But it isn't like, oh, we shouldn't like or respect

(01:43:52):
this character, Like this character isn't worth virtuous Mina's time,
Like she's like, wow, that's awesome.

Speaker 2 (01:43:58):
I love that she does that. It's great. So that's
who gets my nipples. And I love the movie the.

Speaker 3 (01:44:04):
End I'm going to go I'll go to as well.
I feel like as a yardstick, it is like so gorgeous,
it is so campy. But if the movie from nineteen
ninety two is less gay than the book from eighteen
ninety seven, it was a problem. We have a problem.
But yeah, I think that the Mina adjustments, like it
was an attempt. I didn't love the attempt. I liked

(01:44:27):
the idea of like exploring this character's passion and like
the restrictions of the time that Bramstoker kind of probably
wouldn't have been able to or maybe not thought much of.
But I just didn't I felt like the direction they
did it was very nineteen ninety two, very yeah, like
erotic thrillery in a way that I feel like didn't
really do the character much of a favor. But it's

(01:44:50):
like such a great movie.

Speaker 4 (01:44:51):
I do.

Speaker 3 (01:44:53):
Ship Mina and Lucy. I do love their friendship. I
think that they are the best on screen pairing, and
I wish that they had just run away from whatever
the fuck was going on in this movie.

Speaker 2 (01:45:07):
Yeah, I think that they should have paired off and
then Lucy's three boyfriends should have gotten everybody.

Speaker 4 (01:45:14):
Should just be gay, be gay, cry eat babies. But
did you do not think that their kiss was a
little bit male gaze?

Speaker 3 (01:45:26):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (01:45:27):
Yeah, it's like drack keels like and now you're gonna kiss.

Speaker 2 (01:45:30):
Yeah, I mean the way that like Lucy's tits are
out and every scene gratuitously, it is very gratuitous.

Speaker 3 (01:45:38):
I don't know, I'm not I could. I was like
it was a hot kid. Oh no, I think you're right,
You're right, and we have to say it. Yeah, I'll
go to nipples wanted to mean and one to Lucy perfect.

Speaker 4 (01:45:55):
Yeah, I think for all of the reasons you've said,
I'm gonna I'm gonna also give it two nipples. I've
got consensus. One other thing that I remembered about why
I hate Van helsing, and it's just symbolic of like
the kind of man stuff that's all over this movie
is at the end of the movie, Winona's turning into
a vampire, and she's like, gonna try and seduce him

(01:46:15):
and turn him into a vampire, And so she kisses him,
but he fully kisses her back. He's like yeah, He's
like great, Yeah, I've been waiting. I assumed this would
happen for me at some point based on what he's
so annoying. Yeah, it's like, yeah, there's just man's fingerprints
all over this production, and it really holds back any
of the things that's trying to say about women's sexuality,

(01:46:36):
surprising to no one. So anyway, Yeah, two nipples. I'll
give one to the costume designer Ako, and I'll give
the other two Feminist icon, the pile of rats.

Speaker 2 (01:46:49):
Oh yeah, my god, you've got to go to the
pile of remi icon, queer icon, that pile of rats. Everything.

Speaker 3 (01:46:56):
One more nice thing about my two favorite male actors
in this movie was that Francis for Coppola did encourage
Gary Oldman to say gross things to people in her ear.
So he was complicent in that, which when on a
rider would say later she was very uncomfortable with. She
really didn't like it. She felt unsafe. I guess that
Francis Ford Coppola asked Keanu and Anthony Hopkins to do

(01:47:20):
the same thing, and they were like, no, we're not
going to do that. That does She's an actor. I
think she'll be okay. And I love those guys, so
that I was glad to know that they did the
right thing.

Speaker 4 (01:47:31):
Yeah, and Anthony Hopkins also apparently she was afraid of fire.
She has a like lifelong fear of fire, and so
they had to do that scene where they're in a
ring of fire. And as soon as they started filming,
he picked her up and carried her out of the fire.
He was like, very protective of her. And yeah, he
also didn't he didn't want to shout you slut at
her on a on a film set, which was you know, as.

Speaker 3 (01:47:52):
A low bar. Yeah. I was like, wow, femin it's
not called what men of so many men want to
yell at. Well, you know, there's a lot of men
barely clearing the bar of decency in this in the
story of this production. Yeah, did we do it.

Speaker 2 (01:48:12):
We did the episode. Chrystal, Thank you so much, thank
you for joining.

Speaker 4 (01:48:16):
Us, Thank you for having me, And if you're listening,
allow me one last shameless plug and if you're anything
like me and two weeks between episodes of The Bechdel
Cast is far too long, feel free to check out
camp Classics for more of my unqualified opinions about movies.

Speaker 3 (01:48:31):
Amazing. Yeah, please cover I Frankenstein.

Speaker 4 (01:48:34):
Wait, I am going to need to move on from
vampires at some point.

Speaker 3 (01:48:37):
Yeah. And guess who's gonna be waiting for you? HOODI Frankenstein,
hoodie nunchuck.

Speaker 4 (01:48:42):
You did not say hoodie or nunchuck earlier.

Speaker 3 (01:48:46):
Sexy hoodie nunchuck. I love my favorite shot in all
of movies. They showed the passage of time of like
three hundred years of just a static shot of I
Frankenstein on top of them out and swinging nun chucks
and they're like three hundred years past. It just cuts
to the presence. You're gonna love it. Oh, I wish

(01:49:07):
I could see it again for the first time. I
love it.

Speaker 2 (01:49:11):
Where can people follow you online?

Speaker 4 (01:49:13):
So I'm at Crystal We'll See You Now on Instagram
and TikTok, and my podcast is at KEMP Classics Podcast
on Instagram.

Speaker 3 (01:49:22):
Yay.

Speaker 2 (01:49:23):
You can follow us on Instagram as well. At Bechdelcast.
You can also subscribe to our Patreon aka Matreon. That's
the best way to support the show. It's only five
dollars a month, and you get access to two bonus
episodes every month, and the entire back catalog of it's
almost two hundred bonus episodes.

Speaker 3 (01:49:45):
So there's no time as a brutal mistress.

Speaker 2 (01:49:48):
And I think that's where our I Frankenstein episode lives.
That was a Matreon episode if I remember correctly.

Speaker 3 (01:49:54):
Yeah, that we've Caitlin let me do that one as
a treat and then entered the community. I frank I
owe you as a joke. If it came a passion,
I owe you a debt of gratitude, thank you so much. Yeah,
thank you for thanking me again, of course.

Speaker 2 (01:50:12):
And uh yeah, check out our link tree. There's links
there to stuff. Link tree slash. Bechdel Cast love you,
Bye bye bye, goodbye.

Speaker 1 (01:50:24):
There is.

Speaker 2 (01:50:29):
The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted by
Caitlin Dorante and Jamie loftis produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited
by Mola Board. Our theme song was composed by Mike
Kaplan with vocals by Catherine Volskrosensky. Our logo and merch
is designed by Jamie Loftis, and a special thanks to
Aristotle Acevedo. For more information about the podcast, please visit

(01:50:52):
link Tree Slash Bechdel Cast