This October Bank Holiday weekend Dublin City will celebrate all things ghoulish at the ‘fangtastic’ second annual Bram Stoker Festival, running Saturday 26th through to Monday 28th October, 2013. This year’s event features an eclectic selection of six films taking inspiration from Stoker’s work, chosen for the Festival by Kim Newman. Taking the legacy of Dublin horror novelist Bram Stoker and his gothic novel Dracula as inspiration, the Festival spreads across Dublin City Centre, and will celebrate all things macabre, strange and supernatural mixed with some fun for fiction fans!
Films screening over the bank holiday weekend in Meeting House Square, Temple Bar, are The Monster Squad; Tod Browning’s 1931 Dracula; the animated hit Hotel Transylvania; The Brides of Dracula starring the legendary Peter Cushing; a midnight screening of Paul Morrissey’s Blood for Dracula; and Guy Maddin’s remarkable Dracula: Pages from a Virgin’s Diary.
Commenting on his selections, Kim Newman said: “From 1922, when FW Murnau adapted Bram Stoker’s novel freely as Nosferatu, A Symphony of Terror, Dracula has been a recurrent presence in the cinema. Indeed, the character has escaped from his original creator and become a fixture in everything from gothic horror to children’s cartoons, with sumptuous literary adaptations and drive-in exploitation pictures along the way. I have tried to select films that represent a range of approaches to the subject matter, from the classical to the subversive, the horrific to the romantic, the commercial to self-consciously arty. One even shifts the focus from Dracula to his nemesis, Van Helsing, while the others present three major Dracula performances.”
Kim Newman is an award-winning author and well-known and respected movie critic. He writes regularly for Empire. His new novel, Johnny Alucard, is the long-awaited next instalment in his award-winning Anno Dracula series.
Event information:
Date: Saturday 26th – Monday 28th October
Where: Meeting House Square, Temple Bar, Dublin 2.
Admission: €6.00 Adults, €4 children & Concessions (Seniors/Students/Unemployed)
The Monster Squad: Saturday 26th October @ 19.30
PG / 82 min / 1987 / Director: Fred Dekker. Starring – Andre Gower, Robby Kiger, Stephen Macht.
Dracula, Frankenstein, Wolf Man, the Mummy and the Creature from the Black Lagoon begin a reign of evil, and a group of kids try to stop them.
Dracula: Saturday 26th October @ 21.30
PG / 75 min / 1931 / Director: Tod Browning. Starring – Bela Lugosi, Helen Chandler, David Manners.
Tod Browning’s early talkie is an essential horror movie, spotlighting Bela Lugosi’s star-making turn as the vampire Count.
Hotel Transylvania: Sunday 27th October @ 18.30
U / 91 min / 2012 / Director: Genndy Tartakovsky. Starring – Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Andey Samberg, Selena Gomez.
A sweet, inventive, gag-fest with amusing rethinks of the classic monsters.
The Brides of Dracula: Sunday 27th October @ 21.30
12 / 85 min / 1960 / Director: Terence Fisher. Starring – Peter Cushing, Martita Hunt, Yvonne Monlaur.
This splendidly gothic follow-up to Hammer’s 1958 Dracula pits Peter Cushing’s stalwart Van Helsing against Baron Meinster (David Peel), who persuades winsome heroine (Yvonne Monlaur) to unlock the silver chain his devoted mother (Martita Hunt) uses to keep him in check.
Blood for Dracula: Sunday 27th October @ 12.00midnight
18 / 106 min / 1974 / Director: Paul Morrissey. Starring – Joe Dallesandro, Udo Kier, Vittorio De Sica.
Morrissey’s elegant yet gruesome vampire pastiche has Dracula so desperate for virgin blood that he travels to Italy for fresher victims.
Dracula: Pages From a Virgin’s Diary: Monday 28th October @ 8.30pm
PG / 73 min / 2002 / Director: Guy Maddin. Starring – Wei – Qiang Zang, Tara Birthwhistle, David Maroni.
Guy Maddin’s ballet version is at once among the most bizarre Dracula adaptations and the most faithful to the letter of the novel.