DRACULA 2: GENUINE SEQUEL TO BRAM STOKER CLASSIC ANNOUNCED

starboy — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 13:19:11 +0000

In an eruption of What-The-? comes news that an officially sanctioned sequel to Bram Stoker’s seminal novel DRACULA is to be published, and the movie will go into production before the first copy of the book hits the shelves. As far as needless sequels go, this really does take the biscuit, and will probably get it in the neck (HURRAH! WIT!) from critics everywhere. Written by Stoker’s great-grandnephew Dacre Stoker, along with a Stoker historian, it is said to be an expansion on the notes for the original work that became Dracula. To me this has ‘cash in’ scrawled all over it, but it is claimed that the piece, called simply ‘The Undead’, is a ‘virtually seamless continuation’. Yeah, okay. How many people remember the ‘official’ sequel to ‘Gone With The Wind’? True classics should be left well alone in literary terms. Sure, do spin-offs and reimaginings of the story or the genre itself, but don’t try and pass things off as real sequels so long after the original writer has passed away. Unless the story and the writing are absolutely immaculate and Stoker’s voice resonates from every line of text, it is going to be pulled to pieces very quickly indeed. I can’t help but feel this sort of thing short-changes fans somewhat. Look at The Children of Hurn- the book completed from Tolkien’s notes by family. It came out and was sliced up by reviewers for being a lumbering, heavy handed cash in on their late relative’s legendary name. This feels like much the same thing.

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DRACULA 2: GENUINE SEQUEL TO BRAM STOKER CLASSIC ANNOUNCED