Dracula

Left-to-right: Lady Jayne Weatherby (Victoria Smurfitt), Abraham van Helsing (Thomas Kretschmann), Jonathan Harker (Oliver Jackson-Cohen), Dracula (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), Mina Murray (Jessica de Gouw), Renfield (Nonso Azounie) and Lucy Westenra (Katie McGrath)

Since TV is on a Victorian Gothic horror kick, let's follow up my Penny Dreadful review with 2013's Dracula, a lavish production which crashed and burned after this, its first series.

What is the core of the Dracula story? Obsession, sex, repression, good vs evil, furriners are bad? This interpretation draws on some of the lesser known themes of the narrative, such as geomagnetic wireless electricity, government corruption, manipulation of the media and international Catholic money conspiracies.

Ooo-kay...

So, pathologist Abraham van Helsing revives Dracula in order to obtain revenge on the Order of the Dragon, a conspiracy of powerful and wealthy (apparently Catholic) individuals who made Dracula into a vampire because... reasons, and murdered van Helsing's family because... evil? In order to do this, they set out to promote geomagnetic, wireless electricity, thus shattering the control of the world's oil reserves that underpins the Order's power. The third member of their alliance is R.M. Renfield, here cast not as a scrawny loon, but as a erudite, intelligent African-American lawyer, whose prodigious size and strength actually fit the literary character much better than the conventional appearance.

Drawn into the periphery of the plot are van Helsing's student, Mina Murray (who is thankfully less strident than a female pathology student in a Victorian melodrama might have been) and her colossal jackass fiance Jonathan, ditzy closet lesbian Lucy and slinky, manipulative Lady Jayne Weatherby, the Order's chief huntsman.

The series is interesting for its shift across its run from sexy melodrama to bloody Jacobean tragedy. Early episodes are marked by Dracula's manipulation of Harker and Murray's relationship, striving to be close to the woman who looks like his long-dead wife (murdered by the Order, natch) while placing an obstacle between them so that he can't destroy her, and his athletic sexual relationship with Lady Jayne. Later episodes are more likely to feature ripped throats and decapitated vampires than the Meyers/Smurfitt nudity double bill, and the final episode wipes out much of the supporting cast with a combination of brutal violence, exploding electricity and crawling parental heebie-jeebie horror.

In artistic terms, it's no better than Penny Dreadful, but I will say this for it: It seems to be having a lot more fun. It embraces its concepts and just goes full throttle, however stupid they may be. I also respect a vampire hunting team that utilises numbers, military organisation and daytime raids.

Don't buy it, but if you can see it for free it's worth the sevenish hours of your life.