OVERVIEW

This documentary examines the complex life of one of Ireland’s most elusive novelists - Bram Stoker - and the bizarre parallels between the writer himself and that of his most famous creation, the greatest vampire of them all, Count Dracula.

Double meanings and double identities abound in Dracula, as they did throughout the life of its author. In creating the world’s most famous vampire, Stoker was able to unburden himself of his early childhood fantasies and to explore his confused sexuality. The nine main characters in Dracula reflect not only Stoker’s life and times, but his own secret thoughts: the novel is almost a coded Victorian diary.

When he died, not a single obituary mentioned his most famous work today it has been translated into over fifty languages and Count Dracula has become the most filmed fictional character in movie history.

Dracula’s Bram Stoker finally breaks the coded silence that surrounds the creator of one of literature’s most chilling and unforgettable characters and gives a unique understanding of the warring elements in his nature and sexuality that led him to write this masterpiece of the Gothic horror novel.

Director: Sinead O'Brien
Producers: Noel Pearson, AnneMarie Naughton

CONTRIBUTORS

The documentary includes interviews with film director Neil Jordan, Senator David Norris, actors Donald Sinden and Christopher Lee, historian Roy Foster, writers, authors and members of the Dracula Organisation and the Bram Stoker Society.