Dracula the Un-Dead

Are you a writer by profession?

I have done many things so far in my life; I have been a school master, having taught Health and Physical Education, for twenty two years. In addition I have participated in the sport of Modern Pentathlon as an athlete and a coach at the World Championship and Olympic level. I currently teach fly-fishing, CPR and First Aid, head up a volunteer unit for the local Sheriff’s Office, and am the Executive Director of a land conservation organization. So working on this novel is another interesting chapter in my life. His notes show that Bram was meticulous in his research and attention for detail in preparation for writing Dracula. He learned of all the train schedules, local tides and weather patterns so historically the details in Dracula would be accurate. He handled his job as manager of the Lyceum Theater in London in the same way.  When the troop traveled Bram was responsible for all the plans and arrangements. I share this Stoker gene and it serves me well in my organizational efforts in the varied things I am involved with. This novel/ movie project is very exciting to me, I am involved with a very experienced team of people, a researcher and Victorian history buff, Alex Gallant, Ian Holt the Dracula scholar and screenwriter, and Ken Atchity our literary manager film producer.

Did anything notable or surprising occur during the writing process?

We discovered 124 pages of Bram’s handwritten notes on his original draft of his 1897 novel, “Dracula” stored at the Rosenbacjh Library in Philadelphia. In the notes we discovered characters and plot points and hints of existing character backgrounds that were edited out of Bram’s work. We used these bits of tantalizing clues as to what Bram Stoker had in mind to craft our sequel. It was almost as if the ghost of Bram was at ourside whispering in our ear as we wrote.

What’s it like to be related to someone whose singular work of Dracula is so famous and has impacted the film industry and a certain time of year so much?

To be honest I am very proud, but humbled at the same time. The history of the book is pretty tragic, Bram died before the book became popular. F.W, Murnau stole Bram’s story for his 1921 film, “Nosferatu.” The family sued and all prints of the film were ordered destroyed, luckily a few survived.  But that unfortunate incident led the family to become so jaded that they never renewed the copyright and never received any royalties from any of the films about Dracula ever made.  When the family lost the rights they also lost control of Bram’s characters.  Hollywood and novelists, because the book is in the public domain, have cannibalized and bastardized the original story and characters so much over the last century, that Bram’s genius original vision, except to the die hard fans, has practically been lost to generations.

From Author Ian Holt:

Why did you become a writer and what do you hope readers take away from this book?

Teachers told me from the time I was a little boy that I had a great imagination and writing skills and that I should become a writer.  I started out as an actor and was in the late, great Stella Adler’s last acting class through NYU’s Tisch School Of The Arts before she retired. In that class as part of Adler’s method we learned how to break down a play and create our own character backstories. I became fascinated with story structure, character development and expanding plays beyond what was on the page. This lead to me writing my first screenplay which was optioned. After that I was hooked on writing.  With acting you are always a small cog in a much bigger wheel, but writing allows you to control your own work’s destiny. When writing you are the boss. The UN-DEAD is my first attempt at writing a novel. Also, I hated the regimented world of 9-5 work and writing is my way of living life and earning a living on my own terms. Writing is freedom.

I hope people take away from this book the TRUE Dracula story as Bram envisioned it — an amazing and visionary tale of Gothic horror and romance that holds a mirror up to our society’s shortfalls and repression — and leave behind the films other than a few which have turned Dracula and Bram into a farce.

From Author Dacre Stoker:

How did you decide to write the sequel?

 In College I chose to do a research paper on Bram and his possible motivations to write the story. I had seen so many film versions of Dracula and very few had any resemblance to Bram’s original novel. Because the novel was so good and had stood up so well over the years, I found it really sad that all the trash Hollywood had put out had really sullied Bram’s and the family’s literary legacy.

 Many years later, I met an interesting character, Ian Holt, a screenwriter who had been obsessed with Dracula since he was a  child. Ian had traveled to Transylvania and actually spent the night in the ruins of the historic Prince Dracula’s Castle in the town of Poenari. Ian was a  speaker at Dracula ‘97 in LA — the celebration of the 100th Anniversary of the release of Bram’s novel

 Ian’s story ideas for a sequel to Bram’s work really sparked a lot of those old feelings I had when I did my college paper.  Ian and I decided to work together to reestablish the Stoker lineage and vision of the story by resurrecting Bram’s original themes and characters just as Bram conceived them over a century ago. Our intent is to give both Bram and Dracula back their dignity.  Maybe even more important is to give the novel’s legions of loyal fans what they have been waiting over a century for…  the return of the REAL Dracula