MovieChat Forums > Dracula (1979) Discussion > Two types of vampires?

Two types of vampires?


Type 1: self-aware, normal(good)-looking, capable of moral choices and good use of his powers/limitations in his benefit.
Type 2: half-conscious, cannot think clearly, has no choice but try to quench his thirst for blood, scary-looking.
Usually the movies have one of those two types only, but in this one Dracula seems a complete different species from Mina. It looks like he spreads the "disease", but is only partially affected by it. What do you all think?

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I am probably stretching a bit, but I blame Mina's horrific appearance on the garlic flowers her father strews all over her grave. Lucy doesn't seem to diminish as fast as Mina, and that's the only explanation I can come up with for the difference between them.

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No, it's not the garlic. Garlic is an antibiotic, and so it is good at fighting any disease. Mina was turned into a zombie because her body was already weak when she was bit. If anyone is familiar with the japanese hit anime "Hellsing" you learn in that series that not anyone can be turned into a vampire. Some people are merely bitten and turned into ghouls.

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Mina's NOT a zombie, she's a vampire. My God! If you're going to LIE at least look into the folklore the film is based on or the original novel.

Garlic is an antibiotic, yes, and if vampirism is a disease than yes, it would ward against vampires but here's the thing, WITHOUT the vampirism she would be just a corpse. Not a living, happy, healthy woman. So yes, the garlic flowers are probably the cause of her deteriorated condition.

And WHY the Hell would you reference HELLSING of all things as the basis for your argument?! My god! My God! My God! My parapsychology obsessed brain nearly had an aneurysm.

This is Dracula, NOT Hellsing. Hellsing borrows a lot from the Dracula novel, including it's main character (who is Dracula in disguise) but it follows it's own mythos. Hellsing also claims you have to be a virgin to become a vampire (which was the most idiotic change from the novel Dracula ever outside of Dracula 2000 claiming he's Judas). Do you honestly think Vlad the Impaler was a virgin!? Seriously?! Or any of those three female vampires in his castle for that matter!

Being weak in life does NOT effect what kind of vampire you become. The vampirism changes the physiology, improves the physical state. Even in your precious Hellsing did you not notice Seras was vastly improved as a vampire and even recovered from LIMBS being torn off? She was a frail little thing (despite being a cop).

Also these vampires are NOT made with just a bite. He also feeds them some of his own blood. You see this with Mina herself and it's in the Dracula novel. We don't see a lot of what happened with Lucy, it was off camera.

Again, don't try to "explain" something you know nothing about, thanks. All you di is give folklore fanatics like myself aggressive headaches.





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I am probably stretching a bit, but I blame Mina's horrific appearance on the garlic flowers her father strews all over her grave. Lucy doesn't seem to diminish as fast as Mina, and that's the only explanation I can come up with for the difference between them.


I imagine you're right. That and she could have been driven insane by the transformation. It's probably very traumatic, waking up as a monster in your own coffin. And considering she fed on the baby, she may have also been starving.

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I don't think there are multiple versions of vampire. This is NOT The Dresden Files. There's no Black Court in Dracula.

Mina looked the way she did because she was a new born vampire, exposed to garlic and probably also a bit starved. The transformation could have even driven her insane.



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I don't think there are multiple versions of vampire. This is NOT The Dresden Files. There's no Black Court in Dracula.

Mina looked the way she did because she was a new born vampire, exposed to garlic and probably also a bit starved. The transformation could have even driven her insane.

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IN the Book the Female Vampire living with to Dracula also have a different demeanor from him, being described as Languid like Le Fanu's Carmilla.

"When the chips are down... these Civilized people... will Eat each Other"

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You need to stop. Not only did you not know he could summon wolves but you profess to know who Stoker's mentor is yet each time we debate you make it more and more obvious you never cracked open the novel in your life.

The three in the castle were FAR from subserviant. They made demands of him and taunted him without repercussion.

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Yes I was aware he could summon wolves, you misunderstood me. And your Denial of Sotker's connection to leFanu just makes you like an an uninformed idiot here.

Did I say they where Subservient?

"When the chips are down... these Civilized people... will Eat each Other"

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Yes, you did say subservient, there's a website that lets you go back on these posts before edits are made.


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yes well you took that the wrong way, their clearly Subservient in a sens,e and I never meant that no free will.

But that wasn't the point of my post, so your making it the point of your response just makes you look weird.

You've been misunderstanding everything I've said on the subject of Vampire lately, so perhaps you should just stop paying attention to me.

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When I saw this film 30 years ago my feeling was that Mina was deranged and animalistic because thats how vampires were. Lucy had been transfused and created a different result. Dracula himself I do not know. Was he the FIRST vampire? If so than that is my explanation to as why he is not as degenerated as Mina.

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She came out looking like a Zombie because her father knew what she was and tried to trap her in her coffin. His use of the garlic on top of the grave prevented Dracula from waking Lucy from her sleep and taking her out of the coffin.

He didn't realize that the ground was riddled with old mining tunnels and therefore Lucy dug her way out of her coffin trap. That led to the destruction of her body.

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I always thought Nosferatu was more handsome than this version of Dracula

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Nosferatu? Ewww!!! 🤣

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This confused my also, especially when Dracula corrected either Van Helsing or Seward when one of them said that vampires were nosferatu, the undead and Dracula said, "No, nosferatu means not dead". I took this to mean that this movie was presenting vampires as different from what Bram Stoker portrayed them. But there was never anywhere in the movie that showed Dracula to have a heartbeat or had him say anything that implied he had a beating heart at least to some extent.
Having Mina appear as a rotting corpse made no sense . it would have made more sense for her to look more normal as time when on in the scene she was in, as if the "disease" not only reanimates the person, but also makes the "nosferatu" more alive. Spoiler alert--------it would have also made her being killed have more impact and be much sadder since her father sees her slowing becoming more like she was alive and yet he knows he has to destroy her.

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