You’re looking for a Dracula DVD?  Yes, there are DVD’s featuring the story of Count Dracula, the most famous vampire of all time.

Whether or not it’s Halloween, check out our suggestions below. You can spend an entire weekend viewing these films. Just stock up on candy and popcorn, close the drapes, lock the doors and hang garlic in your windows and doorways.

Dracula, The Legacy Collection
Universal Studios starring: Bela Lugosi and Lon Chaney Jr. among others.
Black & White, 5 films on 2 discs, Subtitled, Box set

More than a century after publication of Bram Stoker’s original novel, the vampire fantasy continues to hold us spellbound. A dreary castle in Transylvania, Romania – bloodsucking vampires – open graves – we still want to read about it and see it.

There is a bounty of riches in these discs that you’ll get to see and hear with the original score as well as a more modern version by Phil Glass and performed by the famous Kronos Quartet. Also, the Spanish version filmed at the same time, using the same sets, has been sought after for years. What more can you ask? Well there are a few extra surprises as well. After all, legends never die. Why not have a scary movie night in your back yard for your next Halloween or Mardi Gras costume party.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula
Sony Pictures (1992) with stars Gary Oldman, Anthony Hopkins, Winona Ryder, Keanu Reeves; Director: Francis Ford Coppola
1 disc; English, French, Spanish with subtitles.

This fresh, exuberant version of Stoker’s Dracula is a love story for hopeless romantics. It helps if you’ve read the book. Although the film tries to capture the book, the emphasis has been shifted from a horror tale to an impossible love story.

The film is tongue-in-cheek. Count Dracula can’t stop feeding off the living and Van Helsing can’t stop trying to do away with Dracula. Dracula’s love interest, Mina, is promised to another. For the women, there’s passion and longing. For the men there are high speed horseback chases and gore — the fangs have to come out at some point. There is something for everyone.

If you’ve read Bram Stoker’s Dracula, you’re aware of many concepts of vampires like they shun garlic and count seeds. Vampires have been known to turn into bats so they can hover outside a victim’s window. It was written that Count Dracula’s castle in Transylvania had no mirrors. The original concept was that vampires have no reflections but traditional folklore indicated that mirrors reveal the soul.

When you and your kids decide that you want to pretend to be vampires and get costumes to wear at a Halloween party or trick-or-treating around the neighborhood, please make sure to do two things:  a) tuck a crucifix somewhere on your person and b) get from Dracula Costumes.org — the most comprehensive resource for vampire costumes and accessories.

Legend has it that being near one caused a real vampire to lose his or her supernatural strength. You’ll want to protect yourself from the real thing thinking you’re the real thing, too. It will make the children feel better. Just thinking about the children. Right?

Filed under: Dracula Costumes

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