Dracula Lives Read online

  “And so you shall. You have studied the power of movies to influence real life. The story of my life is that power taken to the nth degree—with, as Poe said in The Conqueror Worm, ‘much of Madness, and more of Sin, and Horror the soul of the plot.’

  “I have my flaws, Mr. Quinn. Some quite grievous. But make no mistake: I am not the mad castle recluse one might assume. Nor am I the eccentric reincarnation of Bela Lugosi I sometimes present myself to be.

  “It is impossible to know all the countless factors that combine to make us who we are. I believe the overriding force behind it all is Destiny. Some call it God. But if there is a God, then perhaps the evil part of my nature was created by the Powers of Darkness. Whatever the case, I am certain of the primary factors that have combined in my warped psyche to turn me into Markov—Maker of Monsters.”

  “Someone had scrawled those words on Henry Frankenstein’s tomb in Son of Frankenstein,” Quinn said.

  “Another of my cinematic ancestors. I am the offspring of those movies. Frankenstein, Dracula, The Wolf Man. They created me. And now I am creating them. A maker of monsters for the digital age.”

  “What are these ‘factors’ that compel you to create monsters?”

  “There at least three of which I am certain. The two most dominant are unquestionably my obsession with Dracula, and my genius in applying technology to filmmaking. I say this latter not as braggadocio, but simply to help you fully understand the things that have shaped my life.”

  “What is the third factor?” Quinn was doggedly trying to forge a path of reason into the dark forests of Markov’s mental wilderness.

  “We shall come to that at our final stop in the tour. My Chamber of Horrors. Forgive my reticence, but I’m sure you can appreciate my filmmaker’s love of the dramatic reveal.”

  “You’re the tour guide. I’m eager to see what comes next.”

  “Very well. It is time to dig deeper into my Pandora’s box. The lid is the door to my screening room. The story of my life starts and ends with the movies.”

  CHAPTER 23

  Inside the screening room, they once again got candy, buckets of popcorn, and drinks. When they were comfortably settled into their seats, Markov began his introduction.

  “We saw Lon’s short last night. Now it is time for the feature. The one film I was able to make. The poverty row picture we talked about earlier.”

  “The Blood of Dracula,” Quinn said.

  “Yes. This is the version that was never shown in theaters. Some of the footage was too grim and taken out before release. My goal was to make the most frightening, disturbing film I could. To out-Tod Tod. Even allowing for what had always been considered unacceptable, I’d always thought horror films shied away from showing the genuine horror. They were too timid. Too formulaic. Too unimaginative in their presentation. I had decided long ago, that if I only had one chance to make my mark, I was going to hold nothing back. You will be the first person outside of the people who worked on the film to see the uncut version. I myself have not watched it since. The memories it conjures are too painful.”

  Markov’s dire introduction only made Quinn more curious to see what he had done with the Dracula story.

  “I’m sure you are familiar with a program on Turner Classic Movies called The Essentials,” Markov said.

  “Very.”

  “Then I give you a never-before-seen look at an absolute essential if you are to truly understand the depth of my Dracula obsession: The Blood of Dracula. Shot for thirty thousand dollars in 1947.” His hand hovered over the button that would start the movie. “We talked of the power of movies to influence real life. This is the film that changed mine forever.”

  From the opening credits it was clear that Markov had not exaggerated his skill as a writer/director. Instead of the standard fade-in, the title burst onto the screen accompanied by the jarring screech of a violin that reminded Quinn of Psycho—he quickly did the math—thirteen years before Psycho came out.

  The lettering of the title and credits dripped blood. In brief intervals between each section of the credits, body parts and monstrous faces whirled in and out of disturbing juxtapositions. It was a kaleidoscopic preview of the horror about to unfold.

  After the final credit there was a dedication:

  This motion picture is dedicated to the memory of Lon Chaney, the Man of a Thousand Faces, whose genius was the inspiration for this Dracula.

  The dedication faded, leaving only a blank white screen that stayed on for what seemed like too long, until Quinn began to wonder if there was a technical problem.

  Suddenly a huge knife slashed through the screen and jolted him back in his seat. The torn remnants of the screen fell away to reveal the opening of the movie. A dizzying montage quickly established the plot:

  A prisoner strapped into an electric chair.

  CUT TO

  A switch being thrown.

  CUT TO

  The prisoner’s shadow on the wall twitching violently while the current buzzes loudly.

  CUT TO

  The prison doctor confirming death.

  CUT TO

  Prison attendants hauling the carcass away as a newspaper headline swirls into view:

  “DUTCH” BURKHARDT FRIES IN CHAIR!

  MONSTER MOLESTED, KILLED CHILDREN

  CUT TO

  Shovels of dirt being thrown on the coffin in the graveyard.

  DISSOLVE TO

  The body being snatched that night by a couple of goons and taken to the lair of a mad doctor.

  The camera dollied into a fixed position in the operating room of the cadaverous Doctor Montescu, whose sharp Germanic features reminded Quinn of Otto Kruger. The corpse was strapped to the operating table, and one of the goons left while the other, Klaus, hovered nearby to assist. At Montescu’s nod he plucked a chainsaw from a table full of gruesome-looking instruments, got it started, and reverently handed it to his master. Montescu displayed no emotion as he sawed off the arms, the legs, and finally the head. Each time the saw was just about to touch flesh, a cutaway to the doctor’s face avoided showing the incision. Despite Markov’s criticism of horror movies for not showing the genuine horror, in 1947 spurting blood would never have gotten past the Breen Office. Quinn was glad. Buckets of blood weren’t necessary for the audience to get the full effect.

  Intercut with the severing of the body parts were shots of them being stitched onto a new muscular torso. When the recycled body was completely assembled, small sheets concealed the face, chest, and genital area.

  From a large bell jar of some clear liquid, Montescu lovingly removed a beating heart. He nodded at Klaus, and the oafish assistant pulled the small sheet from the chest to reveal a gaping incision. Montescu inserted the heart into the hole. Quickly sewing it closed, he went to a glass case a few steps away.

  Inside was a severed head wearing a crown. The head was still alive and watching his every move. Montescu opened the case and inserted a needle into the neck, explaining to the uncomprehending but worshipful Klaus as the glass cylinder filled with blood.

  “This is the head of the original Vlad Dracula, Klaus. For five hundred years it has been kept alive and passed down by his loyal descendants.” When the needle was full, Montescu pulled it out and held it poised over the arm of the reconstructed corpse. “The blood of Dracula,” he proclaimed. “It will transform this imperfect creature into the new Dracula—patriarch and supreme ruler of a new race. A race that shall live forever. A race of vampires!”

  He jammed the needle into the vein.

  A series of dissolves showed the moment of truth: the arm … the needle emptying … the clock on the wall … the empty needle.

  The camera moved farther back to see if the creature would come to life. After a suitably long wait to drag out the tension, the reassembled cadaver began to twitch and stir. Finally, remaining ramrod straight the entire time, it rose into a standing position, exactly as Nosferatu had done in the iconic shot of him rising in h
is coffin. The cloths over the face and genitals had remained in place. The vampire reached up and yanked the one from his face, staring directly into the camera—in effect directly into the eyes of the viewer.

  “Dracula lives!” Montescu shouted. “Forever shall his bloodline rule the earth!”

  The reveal had jolted Quinn back in his seat. Not just because of the sudden direct confrontation by the vampire. The countenance Markov had chosen for his Dracula was shocking.

  It was the hideous vampire from Lon Chaney’s short. The Un-Dead. The scariest vampire Quinn had ever seen. Worse than Max Schreck’s Nosferatu.

  The thin black lips parted to reveal the same set of jarringly perfect teeth. As they had in The Un-Dead, two snake-like fangs popped into place. The vampire’s smile was that of a demon.

  Montescu’s moment of triumph was cut short by a knock at the operating room door. He stepped in front of his monster to shield him from view. “Send them away!” he ordered Klaus.

  Klaus opened the door a crack and peeked through. The voice of a young child came from behind the door. “It’s me, Daddy.”

  Still facing the monster with his back to the door, Montescu told the child he’d be out in a moment.

  “Can’t I come in?”

  From the unmuffled sound of the voice, the youngster had apparently managed to poke through the crack in the door. Silently cursing Klaus for letting it happen, Montescu pulled himself up to his fullest possible height to block the hideous face from view. Dracula moved his head to peer over Montescu’s shoulder at the child. An unsavory spark came into the vampire’s eyes.

  A quick cut showed a close-up of the adorable child’s beautiful face. “Who’s your friend, Daddy?”

  “No one you know, sweetheart. We have a private matter to discuss. Klaus! Take Donnie to the study!”

  Quinn set the last of his popcorn aside, anxious to see if Donnie would come bursting in. Instead there was the sound of Klaus muttering as Donnie withdrew and the door closed.

  Montescu and Dracula stood a few feet apart, creator and his creation, eyeing each other with an unwavering stare.

  “You shall be Dracula, master of all vampires,” Montescu said. “But always remember: without me, you would still be lying in the grave. I am your master. I created you to do my bidding. Do you understand?”

  Dracula held the stare for a very long, defiant moment before making a reluctant, barely perceptible nod.

  A long dissolve gave way to a night scene at the edge of deep woods. Montescu commanded his Dracula:

  “Go. Feed. Feed on them all.”

  Dracula spoke his first words—“Yes, Master”—and dropped to all fours.

  A quick cutaway to Montescu’s reaction avoided the expensive and time-consuming transformation scene of Dracula turning into a wolf. In the next shot the wolf was simply there, artfully underlit to conceal the fact that it was probably a large dog. Its long, rumbling growl, a mixture of deep menace and predatory lust, sent a chill scurrying through Quinn. The growl died out and the wolf bolted into the woods.

  Dracula returned to human form as he approached a village. A tension-filled sequence followed, showing him skulking through the shadows to feed on one hapless soul after another. Each feeding made him stronger and more confident, and a disturbing pattern began to emerge.

  Apparently the child molester influence of Dutch Burkhardt’s body parts made the vampire feed only on children.

  Montescu found this out when he ventured into the village to see if his experiment had been a success. Sitting alone at a table in the pub, he overheard snippets of conversation from the terrified villagers, uttered with a vague Eastern European accent:

  “Calls himself Dracula!”

  “Says he has risen to become our supreme ruler!”

  “Ya!” a beefy villager chimed in. “Yosef escaped his clutches,” he said, crossing himself. “But before he did, dis Dracula boasted to him dat he vus going to be da Prince of Darkness, as soon as he could destroy da vun who stood between him and da throne.”

  Montescu’s eyes widened when he heard this.

  Dracula’s lust for power meant he would be coming to destroy his creator.

  “He sucks da blood of children!” someone shouted.

  Fear contorted Montescu’s face. He bolted from the pub and hastened back to the castle. “The devil cannot take my angel!” he said, running to Donnie’s bedroom with a desperate urgency.

  After placing garlic and wolfbane and crucifixes all around the room, Montescu pulled up a chair and kept watch by the sleeping child’s bedside.

  Suddenly the wolf burst through the window in a shower of glass. After a quick cutaway for a reaction shot, Dracula was standing there, drawn up to his full height, leaving no doubt that he was now the master of all.

  “I am Dracula. Son of the Devil. Your banes cannot stop me. You have made me too strong.” He pointed at the crucifix on the wall above Donnie’s head. “Stronger even than Him!” He looked at Montescu and made a sweeping movement with his arm. “Step aside, mortal. Your child shall carry on my bloodline, not yours.”

  Montescu plucked a sword from the wall. “Never! No creature can live without its head!”

  Dracula ducked and the vicious swipe just missed. In one fluid motion the vampire snatched Donnie while leaping across the bed. Landing on his feet, he struggled to maneuver the screaming and wriggling child into position as a human shield. Montescu saw that he must act fast, while the vampire’s neck was still exposed.

  He rounded the bed and drew back the sword. But just as he began the killing stroke, Dracula stumbled backward over a toy left on the floor. Instead of landing on the vampire’s neck, the sword sliced deeply into the thigh of the child, who let out an agonized scream as blood spurted everywhere.

  In the screening room, Quinn’s arm shot up to shield him from the splatter but he quickly caught himself and pulled it back down. Jesus Christ, that looks real. No child actor could be that convincing. He cast a furtive glance at Markov, whose attention was riveted on the screen, a pained look on his face.

  Troubling thoughts nagged Quinn as he watched Donnie’s all-too-realistic agony.

  Is this a snuff film? How sick is Markov? How did he get that blood past the Breen office?

  Unable to tear his eyes away, he watched as an enraged Montescu drew back for a second stroke at the neck of the vampire. Just as the downstroke began the screen went black. In the blackout Quinn heard the whoosh, followed by Dracula’s agonized death groans.

  The blackout faded in to a denouement that lasted barely a minute, obviously meant to reassure the audience that the child would be alright. Compared to the seamlessness of the rest of the film, the series of clumsily edited shots had the air of having been hastily tacked on.

  A medium shot showed Donnie lying in a hospital bed, Montescu sitting close and holding his child’s hand. A close-up of Montescu looking down at Donnie with a relieved smile was followed by an extreme close-up of the child’s smiling face, incongruously showing no reaction to having almost lost a leg.

  The angelic face dissolved into Dracula’s severed head. The final shot held on the hideous dead face of the vampire for a disturbingly long time, tension mounting every second as Quinn wondered: will those eyes pop open?

  Instead, the screen suddenly went black. The blackout lasted just long enough to lull the audience into thinking the film was over, then—

  The same knife from the opening slashed through the screen, accompanied by the same screeching violin. The torn halves of the blackout fell away to reveal the blank white screen that had begun the movie. A splash of color in the completely black-and-white film burst onto the stark whiteness—two red words dripping blood:

  THE END

  After a long beat, two of the blood trails beneath the letters began to move. They slithered up alongside the D, then wriggled into the shape of a question mark.

  THE END?

  An iris fade-out held on the blood-red words b
efore a quick blackout.

  The theater was plunged into complete darkness except for the dim lighting in Markov’s control panel. In its faint glow he appeared as a shadow. Whether he was in a daze or engaging in his flair for melodrama, he sat utterly still for a long moment.

  Finally he activated the house lights and turned to face Quinn, clearly waiting for his reaction.

  Quinn sorted through the jumble of impressions swirling in his head, thinking of how best to begin. “It is indeed the Citizen Kane of poverty row pictures.”

  A glow of pride chased the shadow from Markov’s face. “Do go on.”

  “Truly shocking. Decades ahead of its time. There are elements of Psycho—thirteen years before Psycho came out. That screeching violin and the final dissolve, from the beautiful Donnie to the hideous Dracula.”

  “My Dracula, of course, is an homage to Lon Chaney’s Dracula. A way of bringing to the screen what he didn’t live long enough to bring himself.”

  For the next fifteen minutes they discussed the film, Markov reveling in the praise of his filmmaking skills. The acting was adequate at best, but all the other elements—inventive camerawork, intelligent dialogue, creative editing, nerve-jangling music—combined to create a minor masterpiece, far beyond what should have been possible on a minuscule poverty row budget.

  “The severing of the body parts,” Quinn said. “You artfully cut around it, but even showing that much was unheard-of in those days. And that blood spurting at the end was completely taboo. I kept wondering how you could have gotten that past the Breen office.”

  “That shot was removed from the print we sent to the Breen office. And from the release print.”

  “Saved for the director’s cut,” Quinn said.

  Markov winced as if the casual remark inflicted pain. He offered no explanation, so Quinn went on. “That business with the sword slicing Donnie’s leg looked incredibly real.”