Comedy
Peacemaker
Peacemaker is to superhero as ringworm is to earthworm. It might seem like these two things are related based on their names, but they aren’t.
We all know about Dracula, the legendary bloodsucker that Bram Stoker made from a historical figure, a bunch of folk tales and his own dark imagination. We know about his habits and vulnerabilities: the crosses, the garlic, the sunlight, the wooden stakes.
But in Netflix’s three-part miniseries—a miniseries that seems to leave the door slightly ajar to perhaps rise again—Dracula’s greatest weakness might be the lack of good psychological treatment.
This Dracula—a smooth-talking, wisecracking guy very much of a piece with the 21st century even as he lurks around the 19th—follows some broad brushtrokes of Stoker’s classic novel. Yes, Dracula lived in a castle for a number of centuries before moving to England. Yes, he invited lawyer Jonathan Harker to stay with him for a spell and made the necessary … arrangements. And, yes, he does use poor Johnny like a living snack tray, siphoning off the lawyer’s blood and vitality in preparation for the long trip ahead.
But from there, the story veers off Stoker’s course like a jet-powered Roomba, careening into convents and the briny deep and, eventually … well, let’s just say the journey to England takes longer than even Dracula anticipated.
As the vampire carves his bloody, bloody way through chunks of Europe, Dracula must also deal with a fearsome adversary: Van Helsing. Agatha Van Helsing, that is, who’s not only determined to figure out what makes ol’ Drac tick, but what makes him tremble, too. See, Agatha’s seen her share of undead monstrosities: To be unable to die seems, in this world, to be an occupational hazard. But what makes Dracula’s version of undeadness so charming and sophisticated? Why can he call a legion of bats when a regular undead Joe can’t even call his old phone number? And why is the count—who would seem, by all accounts, to be rather agnostic—still scared of crosses?
The answers, it seems, are rather … bloodless.
While many more modern vampire stories have taken great pains to pull the inherently spiritual fangs of the vampire mythos, this one merely files them down. Faith, it seems, still finds a place here, though much diminished and much revised. Netflix hardly gives us an accurate, doctrinal tour de force; but the streaming network does stress that Jesus was a pretty cool guy. The show suggests that faith matters if, on some level, we think it matters.
Listen, I could write until sundown about this Netflix show’s take on faith and spiritualilty. But to say anything further involves more spoilers than I care to give. And let’s face it: In a show such as this, we find ever-so-many reasons beyond the religious variety to tune out, not tune in.
The original Dracula story certainly sported its share of veiled sexual themes; and in our revisionist age, this tale has been saddled with plenty of tawdry interpretations. But this version of Dracula takes that undercurrent of literary eros and turns it into scrawls on the bathroom stall door. We see plenty of skin in this TV-14 show (though no critical body parts are shown), and we see sexual interludes and witness plenty of illicit desires, imaginings and leanings: Instead of just suggestively lapping up Jonathan Harker’s blood, for instance, this version of Dracula calls Harker his “bride.”
Since we just mentioned the TV-14 rating, all I can say is, Netflix, are you serious? Blood dribbles and sloshes. Undead monstrosities unfold themselves, show off their hideous, decayed visages and beg for death. Scads of folks—innocent and guilty alike—die in a variety of gruesome ways, from stake-stabbing to explosions to being devoured alive by wolves. Why, in the first episode, someone parades around in someone else’s skin, only to dramatically and literally rip it off. If Dracula doesn’t qualify for a TV-MA rating based on the gore alone, I can’t imagine that anything does.
Looking for a positive? Here’s one: The language here is practically profanity free, oddly. And both Dracula and Van Helsing offer a few groan-worthy quips. “Your presence has invigorated me,” Dracula tells a still-clueless Harker. “Fresh blood.”
Dracula is an abominable blend of the grotesque and the silly—a miniseries with R-rated horrors and an infintile sense of self. Its psychological posturing makes this version of Dracula feel, paradoxically, rather Frankenstinian—what a clone of Dr. Phil, Hannibal Lecter and Seth McFarlane might choose to create in its spare time.
Trust me, the book is better.
A very, very sick-looking Jonathan Harker (who’s a recent escapee from Castle Dracula) tells his fantastical tale to a pair of nuns at a Hungarian convent—including one very curious Sister Agatha Van Helsing—in 1897. We see Dracula in bloody action, both in flashback and way too close to home.
Sister Agatha, despite her religious profession, doesn’t believe in God for much of the episode. She tells how a couple of years ago, a church roof collapsed, killing everyone inside except the priest. “God doesn’t care,” Agatha tells Harker, adding that faith is “for children and simpletons.” When asked how a nun can have no faith, she says that like many women, “I am trapped in a loveless marriage, keeping up appearances for the sake of a roof over my head.” Agatha changes her tune, though, when she learns that Dracula shrinks from the cross (even though other vampires don’t) and won’t cross a barrier made of consecrated wafers without invitation.
Agatha also celebrates the fact that darkness—the darkness of Dracula—led her back to the light and God, a point emphasized later by the convent’s mother superior. “Darkness and evil seem compelling to us all,” the mother superior says in the midst of some other often questionable, occasionally edifying statements. “I think it’s because in their presence, we can feel good in our hearts. No, [God] will not reach down to save us. We will rise to meet Him.”
Dracula then cuts her head off while everyone else prays and throws the bleeding noggin about like a bridal bouquet. The nuns brandish their crosses at Dracula, which keep him at bay, but he sics a pack of wolves on them, and all of the nuns die. (We see them fall and hear their screams.) Several undead vampires sport terrible injuries and deformities. Dracula tears someone else’s skin off his body and sluffs off a wolf’s fur. People get stabbed in the chest with stakes: Sometimes it succeeds in killing the victim, sometimes not. In both cases, the stake protrudes grotesquely from the wound. Lots of folks suffer cuts that prove enticing to vamps in their midst.
Dracula is called both God and the devil. He walks around naked for a lengthy scene (where we see his bare rear), embarrassing the gawking nuns in front of him. Dracula wants Harker to be his “bride,” and Agatha bluntly asks Harker if he had sexual intercourse with the Count. An erotic dream that Harker has involves apparent sex with his fiancée, Mina, who turns into Dracula. Agatha tells Harker that dreams are a “haven where you can sin without consequence,” then hints of erotic dreams of her own. Mina discusses fidelity in a letter, jokingly describing all the people she’ll sleep with (including a bar maid) if he’s unfaithful to her. Several jokes are made regarding the sexual habits (or lack thereof) of nuns.
Characters drink wine and, of course, blood. A baby is apparently fed to a captive vampire and turns undead. Someone snacks on a live rat. Dracula quips about how many people he has killed and consumed.
Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.
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