Horror 101

Let's take an old classic horror book, Bram Stoker's Dracula, and as I mentioned in the Twilight review, one of the first vampire novels.

As most of you should know, Dracula is about Keanu Reeves.... oh wait, that's the horrible one-faced actor. The book revolves around Count Dracula, Jonathan Harker, his wife Mina, her closest friend Lucy Westenra and Dr. Seward. The book has a small amount of historical background, such as the "vampire" Vlad Ţepeş who was known for drinking blood among a few other things that I won't be getting into since this is supposed to be a book review after all. The plotline is original for the time, but it has been emulated many times to this date, so people who have read similar books to this novel, will most likely find it very similar. But they must remember one thing, THIS was written before them. I'll get into the story a bit more in-depth than the others. Count Dracula is a Transylvanian count who lives in an eerie castle, in the middle of nowhere and it has a lot of odd things happening inside it. Harker is spooked to the point of near heart attack many times until he is held as a prisoner inside the castle, forced to write letters to sooth the people back in England. Harker is also kept unable to run away due to all of the blood sucked from him during his captivity. One day, the Count and Harker move to Carfax Abbey, near the residence of Dr. Seward's asylum and Dracula sets his eyes on Lucy and Mina. I won't spoil anything more so you will still have a fun time reading it, that is just the premise of the book.

The book has a lot of character development and twists in the story to keep the reader interested. The only person who doesn't change is the ancient evil himself, Count Dracula. Harker becomes a frail man from the strong-willed assistant of Dr. Seward. Mina goes through changes when she encounters the vampire on multiple occasions and almost willingly goes away with him. Lucy is a very shallow person before Dracula shows up and after that she becomes a more terrified individual. *SPOILERS* And well, she gets turned into a vampire, which makes her a bit more seductive. *SPOILERS* So, many of the characters change, but slowly and making them feel like humans and not robots that are re-programmed each day to be different. You can identify yourself with plenty of characters, even with the Count. Even though he (or is it an it already) pale, frightening and odd, he still has positive aspects that people can identify with. He is elegant, charismatic and a very convincing. Me (that is me, Batsy) can identify with his elegance, the frightening factor and oddness. The personalities of every character are very different and very well thought through so you won't find faceless angst-ridden people in this novel. So, excellent plot, interesting characters, incredibly original and delightfully full of surprises, this book is a must read in my opinion.

That does it for this review, have a good read and remember, the oldest and most powerful kind of fear, is the fear of the unknown.

Good Evening