The Dracula Files



Dracula by Edward Gorey

 I was listening yesterday to Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater On The Air's rendition of Bram Stoker's novel Dracula. Good and creepy, and decent for only an hour in length.

Welles highlights the nature of the book in MTotA's version, that it's pieced together from diaries, letters, telegraphs and the like. It made me wonder "Why has no one approached Dracula from this documentary perspective?" You could do it like a History Channel special.

"We've all heard the stories of strange and creepy goings-on surrounding a Transylvanian count named Dracula. But how much of this is truth, and how much is simply sensationalism? Tonight, we will look at eye-witness accounts, collected by Dr Henry Seward, and see what they had to say about this mysterious figure. Join us as we open up "The Dracula Files."

As excerpts are read from diaries or narrated by scratchy old records, we could be looking at photos of people and places and illustrations or even dramatisations of the events. You could have "literary experts" and "historians" commenting on various items--all as if it actually had happened.

Well, I think it would be fun, anyway.