Well, I was looking through some of the ol’ collection the
other day and I came across Dracula here.
I think my wife picked him up for me a few months ago, but I don’t
remember the details – at any rate, I figured he should get a look-in on the
page seeing as he’s arguably the most iconic of all the Universal Monsters.
Most of you reading will know at least the broad strokes of
the history behind the character; loosely inspired by the 15th-century Transylvanian ruler Vlad Dracula (aka Vlad Tepes or Vlad the Impaler), Bram Stoker published the novel Dracula at the end of the 19th century, bringing peasant
legends of the vampires to a general
audience and essentially giving birth to modern-day vampire lore in one fell
swoop.
A few decades later, Hollywood came knocking in the form of Nosferatu – an unlicensed retelling of
the Dracula story with a handful of details changed to avoid paying royalties (it didn’t work), which was a masterful piece of suspense that stands as an impressive
piece of cinema even today. But the cinematic version that really impressed
itself into our collective psyche was the Universal version of Dracula. Released in 1931 and staring
the then-relatively unknown Bela Lugosi, it was an instant classic (which of
course I still haven’t seen) and
firmly set the template for the character that most interpretations have since
followed.
The image of Lugosi as Dracula has been imitated and
parodied so often that it’s lost a lot of its impact over the decades – put a
guy in a black cloak, give him a widow’s peak and an Eastern European accent,
and people are much more likely to laugh than be terrified. Intentionally or not, this take on him
hews a little closer to parody than gothic terror; though the details of the
costume (like the pendant) clearly indicate this is meant to be Lugosi’s
Dracula, the expression on the face looks much cheerier than it does angry or
terrifying. It fits with the overall Funko aesthetic, but I would have liked a slightly angrier expression.
Though I prefer werewolves to vampires, Dracula’s influence
in the world of horror and on wider pop culture is pretty much impossible to
overestimate. If you’re a POP fan and a horror fan, that makes this guy a
near-essential purchase.
There only seems to be one variant available – a metallic
version coming too, part of this
4-pack. It would be nice to get a glow in the dark or bloody one, but we’ll
just have to wait and see.
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