Dracula, first-look review: BBC One's new horror is a bloody good show
It’s a long way from Baker Street to Transylvania but writers Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss have made the trip with ease. The makers of Sherlock have now turned to another classic character in Dracula and their giddily entertaining take on Bram Stoker’s blood-sucking Count provides plenty to sink your teeth into this New Year.
With feature-length episodes stripped across the first three days of 2020, the BBC has staked – pun intended – a lot on this rampant reimagining. Thankfully it delivers. This retelling pulls off the tricky balancing act of being both frightening and funny, spine-chilling and sexy – not to mention ever so slightly camp.
This Count himself is a deliciously devilish presence. Danish actor Claes Bang, in a star-making turn, isn’t just blessed with an excellent name but the looks of a matinee idol and immense charisma. Tall, dark and gruesome, he also spends an eyebrow-raising amount of screen-time naked, which might perk up a few viewers struggling with Hogmanay hangovers.
Bang’s is a chameleon-like performance, changing appearance regularly in the opening episode (no spoilers as to why), yet somehow his brooding physicality comes through. Unlike more cartoonish portrayals, this is a Dracula to truly fear. Much like Sean Connery’s bruising 007 looked like he could beat you up, Bang’s Dracula could eat you alive, then use your bones to pick his teeth.
But the most notable thing about this particular neck-nibbling nobleman is that he is sexually omnivorous, happy to take "Brides" of either gender. Terribly modern for 1897.
The story begins with English lawyer Jonathan Harker (John Heffernan, a fine actor but one who bears a distracting resemblance to Strictly’s Anton du Beke) travelling to Transylvania to meet a new client. Gradually, Harker realises he is a prisoner in Dracula's nightmarish castle , rather than a guest.
The script toys playfully with conventional vampire iconography, almost lapsing into parody in places. There are plentiful references to sunlight, mirrors and crucifixes. Bats, rats and wolves appear but it’s flies which become a recurring motif (“Where there is flesh, there are flies,” murmurs Dracula) and rarely have buzzing insects been so sinister.
The ailing Harker (“You do look rather drained,” coos the faux-concerned Count) eventually discovers he’s got company in the crypt and the creepiness cranks up a gear. If the first hour is full of foreboding and slow-burning dread, the climactic half-hour switches to bodyshock horror, with special effects so viscerally convincing that the squeamish might have to look away.
A scene-stealer to rival the main man is Dolly Wells as no-nonsense nun Sister Agatha. Her conversation with Harker is what frames the story in an echo of the novel’s epistolary structure, with his experiences relived in flashback. The pacy dialogue is written with flair and real wit, with both the anti-hero and his nun nemesis delivering some laugh-aloud one-liners.
Dracula is not quite as thrilling as Sherlock’s arrival a decade ago, but that is perhaps because of “the Cumberbatch effect”. There is also the possibility that baroque blood-letting is unlikely to have the same broad appeal as crime-cracking. However, this Dracula is astonishingly accomplished: fearsomely gripping, fiendishly clever and, in every sense, bloody good.
Dracula begins on BBC One on New Year's Day at 9pm