Castlevania’s Dracula is (almost) the best Dracula adaptation

Vampires, in literature and folklore, were much like zombies, fairies, and other monsters. They hurt people and drank blood because that’s just what they existed to do. They were creatures people should fear, not complex beings with personalities and motivations to build a story around. Bram Stoker’s Dracula (the actual character Dracula, not Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula) marked a turning point in vampire storytelling, as his Dracula is a lot like your stereotypical depiction of a callous aristocrat: entitled, selfish, prone to wrecking things just to satisfy some whim or urge. Good versions of Dracula hone in on those and other pieces of his personality, like his menace or seductiveness, and do something worthwhile with them. That includes Castlevania‘s take on Dracula, which, despite being a story-light video game series, often gets the vampire villain right in ways that films struggle with.