Tag Archives: vampire

books, film

Shadows, Reflections, Mirrors and Vampires

Like having fangs, transforming into bats, or turning to dust in the rays of the sun, not showing up in mirrors is a trait of the vampire that most people take as gospel. Whether it’s Bela Lugosi slapping a the small, mirrored-lid cigarette box out of Van Helsing’s hands in Universal’s DRACULA (1931), or the Count casting no reflection in an enormous ballroom mirror — in both DRACULA: DEAD AND LOVING IT (1995) and VAN HELSING (2004) — pop culture has cemented the belief / trope that vampires just don’t show up in mirrors.

First edition of Dracula, 1897
Dracula, by Bram Stoker. First Edition cloth cover, 1897. From British Literary Board (public domain photo).

The publication of DRACULA in 1897 is perhaps the best and first known instance of a vampire not appearing in a mirror. It occurs early on, in Chapter 2, on the 8th of May, when Jonathan Harker doesn’t see Dracula’s reflection in his shaving mirror. No vampire of folklore ever seemed to have this problem. Various creatures over many cultures and centuries appeared from and disappeared to the shadows, but none had particular issue with a looking glass. Until Dracula.

NO LITERARY PRECEDENT

Lord Byron, the infamous poet on whom his personal physician John Polidori’s Lord Ruthven — arguably, the first true literary vampire — was based curiously had no mirrors in his residence on the isle of Lesbos (see “Extract Of A Letter, Containing An Account Of Lord Byron’s Residence In The Island Of Mitylene,” published along with THE VAMPYRE in 1819). But this was Byron, and one residence otherwise sparsely furnished. And despite what his physician may have thought, Byron was no vampire (OK, maybe a psychic one).

There’s no mention of mirrors or reflections in VARNEY THE VAMPIRE (pubished as “penny dreadfulls” 1845-1847). Neither does Le Fanu Carmilla seem to have a problem with them (1872). They are stealthy, shadowy figures, but reflections aren’t a problem.

There’s an interesting us of shadows in Alexander Dumas’ “Vampire of the Carpathian Mountains” (also known as “The Pale Lady”) — a short story from 1848 that is easily overlooked by fans (and critics) of Gothic tales. This last section of his collected THE THOUSAND AND ONE GHOSTS (1849), does include a vampire, but one that oddly shows ONLY its shadow.

Nosferatu casts shadow
Nosferatu’s Count Orlok cast a shadow. And eagle-eyed watchers of the 1922 film have spotted him reflected in a mirror during his death scene.

Upon Hedwig, the narrator’s encounter with the vampire of Dumas’ tale, she writes: “Je regardai dans la direction de sa main, et je vis en effet l’ombre d’un cheval et d’un cavalier. Mais je cherchai inutilement les corps auxquels les ombres appartenaient,” which translates as “I looked in the direction of his hand, and I did indeed see the shadow of a horse and rider. But I searched in vain for the bodies to which the shadows belonged.”

A shadow is cast. But no figure is seen. And still, no mirror.

None before Stoker.

Not in Uriah Derick D’Arcy’s BLACK VAMPYRE: A LEGEND OF ST. DOMINGO (1819). Nor in Ernst Raupach’s WAKE NOT THE DEAD (1823). Not the case with the wurdulak of Alexander Pushin’s MARKO YACUBOVICH (1835). Nor in THE FAMILY OF THE VOURDALAK from Tolstoy (1839). Throw in the aforementioned Varney and Carmilla, and you find nary an undead figure with a problem with mirrors.

MIRRORS, SILVER, AND SHADOWS

One wonders, then, where Stoker got the idea from? And like much of the supernatural in DRACULA, some find that the answer lies in folklore and superstition. The Japanese Kitsune, for example, shun mirrors as they fear being exposed by their reflections. But it’s almost certain that Kitsune were not something known to Stoker. They show up nowhere in his notes for the novel or other writings.

Victorian Covered Mirror
In the late 19th century, mirrors were often covered at funerals (and a window left open) so the soul of the deceased would not be trapped.

There was a belief among people of both Christian and Jewish faith — as well as spiritualists of the time (of which Stoker was ostensibly one, having been a member of the Society for Psychical Research) —that mirrors captured souls and/or acted as portals to other worlds. Why else cover them in homes or at funerals where the deceased are present. Fear of the spirits of the recently dead getting trapped in a mirror was at the root of this prctice, and, if true, would certainly put a damper on getting to the promised after-life. But the undead? What would they care? They are already dead. And their spirits don’t get sucked in by mirrors so much as their corporeal bodies simply do not show.

Others have posited a theory that silver backed (and silver-gilt) mirrors of the day may be the reason vampires are repelled by the “foul bauble of man’s vanity” (as Dracula puts it). But nowhere else in Stoker’s novel are vampires afraid of silver. There’s a silver-plated brass candle-holder Van Helsing takes with him to Lucy’s grave. But it’s just the better to see her with. There’s a silver whistle, but it’s for Van Helsing to scare aware rats. And yes, while there’s a silver crucifix among the weapons the heroes take into battle at the end of the novel, it’s the crucifix, and not the silver, that seems to work on vampires. The silver itself is never explicitly mentioned as having any power. In folklore, though, silver is associated with the moon and as having purifying qualities, so perhaps it can kill a supernatural creature? The Brother Grimm did have a silver bullet kill a witch in one of their tales (“The Two Brothers” [1812]). And it was reputed that the eighteenth century Beast of Gévaudan was felled by a silver bullet. But, as it turns out, this was an addition made by an author writing in 1946 (Henri Pourrat’s Histoire fidèle de la bête en Gévauda). That’s four years after Universal’s THE WOLF MAN, where screenwriter Curt Siodmak invented the notion that silver kills werewolves.

Why then does Stoker have Dracula not show up in a mirror?

Plain and simple: having Dracula not appear in Harker’s shaving mirror is a great plot device.

There are many ways Stoker could have introduced Dracula as a vampire lusting after blood. And many ways that Harker could have been startled by the vampire’s presence in his room in Dracula’s castle. But the mirror provides the author with a way to dramatically shock Harker, and the reader, with Dracula’s ability to move stealthily, and strike, should he choose — without setting off (at least two) normal human sensory means of detection.

FROM STOKER’S PEN

Here is the whole passage:

I started, for it amazed me that I had not seen him, since the reflection of the glass covered the whole room behind me. In starting I had cut myself slightly, but did not notice it at the moment. Having answered the Count’s salutation, I turned to the glass again to see how I had been mistaken. This time there could be no error, for the man was close to me, and I could see him over my shoulder. But there was no reflection of him in the mirror! The whole room behind me was displayed; but there was no sign of a man in it, except myself. This was startling, and, coming on the top of so many strange things, was beginning to increase that vague feeling of uneasiness which I always have when the Count is near; but at the instant I saw that the cut had bled a little, and the blood was trickling over my chin. I laid down the razor, turning as I did so half round to look for some sticking plaster. When the Count saw my face, his eyes blazed with a sort of demoniac fury, and he suddenly made a grab at my throat. I drew away, and his hand touched the string of beads which held the crucifix. It made an instant change in him, for the fury passed so quickly that I could hardly believe that it was ever there.

“Take care,” he said, “take care how you cut yourself. It is more dangerous than you think in this country.” Then seizing the shaving glass, he went on: “And this is the wretched thing that has done the mischief. It is a foul bauble of man’s vanity. Away with it!” and opening the heavy window with one wrench of his terrible hand, he flung out the glass, which was shattered into a thousand pieces on the stones of the courtyard far below. Then he withdrew without a word. It is very annoying, for I do not see how I am to shave, unless in my watch-case or the bottom of the shaving-pot, which is fortunately of metal.

And that’s the world’s introduction to a vampire not showing in a mirror. If anyone could show a literary or folkloric precedent, it would have been put forth in the 125+ years since the novel’s publication as critics and scholars have painstakenly poured over every aspect of the work and the vampire of folklore that inspired it for at least fifty years (there was a time when studying vampires in the halls of academia was scoffed at).

FUN WITH THE TROPE

In his seminal vampire novel I AM LEGEND (1954), Richard Matheson counts not appearing in mirror among aspects of vampires that even those infected with the “vampire plague,” themselves believe because of peopular culture. But they do. Cast reflections, that is. As do Anne Rice’s vampires, Nosferatu, even the vampires of the Twilight books and movies.

Why? Because writers and filmmakers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have fun playing with the trope. It makes vampires more flesh and blood, so to speak, to show up like the rest of us do in mirrors. All the better, they can admire how they haven’t aged if they can see their reflection, and who among us would at least hope that immortality comes with forever looking good to one’s self. Personally, I hate mirrors.

In the end, it’s clear that some aspects of vampire lore were picked up by Stoker to play to an audience familiar with tropes and lore. Others simply served his story, and oddly, retroactively, became associated with the undead as a given. Something ancient. Something born of old Translyvanian beliefs. But even then, it might surprise some to know that that the inventive Irishman behind DRACULA never set foot in Transylvania, and originally thought of setting his novel in Styria (in southeast Austria).

But that’s a blog entry for another time.

film, musings

On the Wings of Blood: Instances of The Bat-Like Dracula

LAST VOYAGE OF THE DEMETER (Vietnamese poster)

With the upcoming release of André Øvredal’s THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE DEMETER — an adaptation of Chapter 7 of Bram Stoker’s DRACULA and its “Captain’s Log” from a doomed ship carrying the Count from Transylvania (well, Varna, in Bulgaria) to England — Dracula is seen (in the trailers at least) as a bat-like man. Complete with leathery skin, pointy ears, and tremendous wings, this Dracula is less of a man and more of a monster. But was he such in Stoker’s novel? And if not, where did the Dracula as man-like bat (or bat-like man) come from?

In the novel, Dracula can command bats, and even turns into one on occasion, but his form is that of a slightly larger than normal bat, and one that flies in a straight-line more than flutters about. Nowhere does he appear as he does on the posters of DEMETER. In fact, a concordance of the novel shows that the word “bat” is only used 11 times in a book of over 160,000 words — and none of those occurs in the Captain’s log from the Demeter.

October 24, 1885 issue of Punch Magazine with anthropomorphized bat representing the Irish National League.

Regardless, Stoker may at least have been aware of man-bat / bat-man imagery. He most likely read Sir Richard Burton’s VIKRAM AND THE VAMPIRE (1870) with its mention of “The Baital-Pachisi, or Twenty-five Tales of a Baital… the history of a huge Bat, Vampire, or Evil Spirit” from its Preface.  Stoker, an Irishman, may also have seen an 1885 issue of Punch magazine that used the vampire as symbolic of the Irish National League; there, a human face is given to a huge bat. Regardless, Stoker’s bats are just that: bats. Even when Dracula takes to the air as one.

Films more likely influenced (and evolved) the depiction of Dracula as man-bat / bat-man. What many consider the first horror film, 1896’s THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL shows Satan transforming into a bat. Not a vampire. But close.

On the deck of the Demeter in NOSFERATU (1922)

The unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker’s DRACULA that was NOSFERATU (1922), gave actor Max Schreck an animalistic, almost bat-like appearance. Still, his vampire is more rat-than bat, though the image of the vampire on the deck of the Demeter makes for one of the more chilling scenes from any vampire film. Jump to Lon Chaney Jr.’s on-screen transformation into a (normal sized) bat in SON OF DRACULA (1943) and at last we finally see an attempt at the transmogrification itself. But neither Universal Studios nor Hammer would go on to show the Count (or any vampire) as taking on the form of human-sized (or bigger) bat.

Was the bat / rat like Mr. Barlow from SALEM’S LOT (1979) one the inspirations for Dracula in LAST VOAYGE OF THE DEMETER?

Throughout the nineteen seventies and its dozens upon dozens of vampire films, there’s no undead bloodsucker with huge bat wings. Neither Jack Palance as Dracula in the 1974 adaptation, nor Louis Jordan (1977), nor Frank Langela (1979) transform into bat-men / men-bats. There’s an adaptation of Stephen King’s SALEM’S LOT (made for TV) from 1979 that has a nosferatu-ish vampire named Mr. Barlow whose cloak appears much like bat wings, but’s he no full-blown bat.

The vampire bat that is vampire Jerry Dandridge, burning in the sun in 1985’s FRIGHT NIGHT.

In fact, it’s not until the highly original FRIGHT NIGHT (1985) that we see a revelation that within the man, there is large bat — and that, in the case of vampire Jerry Dandridge, his winged, pointy ears form is only revealed once the daylight strikes him and sets him ablaze.

Gary Oldman, in his bat suit, assisted by crew to get into position for a good scare in BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA (1992). A Sony Pictures promotional still.

But Dracula himself? Perhaps one of the first and most memorable transformations of Count Dracula into a bat-man / man-bat is in (Francis Ford Coppola’s) BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA (1992). There, when cornered by the film’s vampire hunters after some alone-time with Mina Harker, Dracula dramatically becomes a true amalgamation of man and bat. It is one of the more fantastic physical forms of Dracula in a film full of them.

Dracula as huge bat in the final fight scene from VAN HELSING (2004)

FROM DUSK TIL DAWN (1996) seemed to borrow from Coppola’s playbook, creating a whole crop of full-sized bat / human hybrids. And by the time we get to the twenty-first century, bat-men and man-bats abound. The most notable being VAN HELSING (2004). Yet this particular film is so far from Stoker’s source material as to not even be worth considering.

That is has taken thirty years to come back to a Dracula based on Stoker’s own words that depicts the titular Count as a bat-man / man-bat is somewhat surprising. And like Coppola’s depiction, DEMETER looks to use mostly practical effects to bring its Dracula to life.

The practical effects and Javier Botet’s performance look to be quite effective in LAST VOYAGE OF THE DEMETER (2023)

Javier Botet is the very talented man behind that mask, but will the bat -man / man-bat approach really work for LAST VOYAGE OF THE DEMETER?  From a Captain’s log that only records the appearance of “a strange man,” and “a tall, thin man” at that, is it a leap to give that man pointy ears and wings? Critics and audiences will decide, but whatever the critical or box-office reaction, the choice is — pun intended — novel.*

*Sunday, August 13: like the Captain’s log itself, my blog post, if found, should tell the whole story. And it’s this: that I saw LAST VOYAGE OF THE DEMETER a few days after I wrote the above essay. The film is atmospheric, claustrophobic, and, at times, even a little unsettling (fans of children and dogs might get upset). It’s not a perfect movie by any means (and depending on how much of a purist you are, the ending might prove disappointing).

Some problems with the script of DEMETER and an often turgid pace prevent it from become more than a b-movie; it’s essentially ALIEN meets MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY, but it’s fun. Judged by its visuals alone — especially Botet’s creepy performance and Øvredal’s adept handling of the careful (and often scary) reveal of the creature — the film is a fine and highly original addition to depictions of Dracula on screen.