Dracula Returns: A Conference and a Celebration

Description

The BBC Gatiss / Moffatt Dracula: Haunted by Hammer
Considering the intertextual and palimpsestic nature of adaptation, Hutcheon states that 'films about Dracula today are as often seen as adaptations of other earlier films as they are of Bram Stoker's novel.' This is also true of television adaptations, and this paper will examine how the forms of film and television combine in the 2020 television Dracula from Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffatt. Structured as three separate but interconnected 90-minute episodes which followed Dracula as the key figure, engaged with different sets of victims / protagonists / antagonists in each episode, moving from his castle, to a ship, and ending in the modern day. This echoes the way that Hammer's films moved from those in which victim protagonists encountered Dracula in his castle, to those in which Dracula was encountered in other settings (Taste the Blood of Dracula, The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires), and then to modern day England (Dracula AD1972, The Satanic Rites of Dracula). While the episodes make nods to the Hammer films, and to other versions of Dracula, this paper will focus on how the structuring of the prestige television mini-series allowed Gatiss and Moffatt to return to Hammer's model and essentially produce three separate-but-linked, low-to-mid-budget films centred on the Dracula character. This contributes to discussions of the ways in which television has taken on this low-to-mid-budget genre filmmaking, including with the spread of streaming services and the blurring of boundaries between cinema and television.

Period	17 May 2025
Event type	Conference
Location	Derby, United KingdomShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International