Character Profiling - Van Helsing

When we first meet Van Helsing we see him in his long coat (with fur inside) his long gloves and his hat. Van Helsing, just by looking at his clothing has already been summed up by the audience by a man of good wealth. The audience wouldn’t say that it is strength that they see within this character but in fact the audience see a man that is smart and sophisticated and has clearly been through good education. The way Van Helsing speaks is light but yet sounds cunning and mysterious at the same time when we first meet him. The audience can establish by Van Helsing’s body shape and frailness that he is not your typical male gender who will be the strong hero and save the day for everyone. Instead the audience sum this man up as someone who is cunning and will take Dracula down with other ways apart from strength but with knowledge.

From then on in this film Van Helsing is shown in nearly every scene which shows as the antagonist their priority over the rest of the females of the film as the male characters are the only threats to Dracula where as the females just fall at his feet.  Van Helsing’s gender is communicated in a more fragile way to the audience compared to Count Draculas gender as Van Helsing is a more of a formal man who doesn’t let things distract him when doing his job and carries on looking for Harker without any distractions. This communicates to the audience about Van Helsing’s gender that he is a man who likes to get the job done.

This film is all about the male characters, to be more specific the antagonist being Dracula and the protagonist being Van Helsing, are the key characters that drive the narrative forward and the cause and effect of their actions help to move the story on, this already priorities the importance of men over women in the film.

The representations of gender is The Horror of Dracula is vast when looking at Van Helsing as he can be contrasted a lot compared to other characters gender within the film as he is not sexualised in any way compared to Dracula and isn’t like your typical hero who saves the day with all the muscles and the girls that he would get. Van Helsing the sort of hero that would use his knowledge collected from Harker’s diary and his initiative to defeat the enemy that is Dracula. 

The Horror Of Dracula (Terrence Fisher 1958)

The horror of Dracula is about a vampire (count Dracula) who preys on victims for their blood as so he can feed himself. Throughout the film many try to stop him such as Jonathon Harker at the beginning of the film who attacks Dracula. Jonathon falls short of the strength to kill Dracula and so pays by the fact that Dracula goes to a nearby city where he preys on Jonathon Harker’s fiancés family. The only man who can put a stop to Count Dracula is Dr. Van Helsing, who will put a stop to Count Dracula at what ever the cost, the two are then locked in a battle till death.

The horror of Dracula fits into the horror genre by the way it follows the specific codes and conventions for this genre. The horror of Dracula does this by its use of sound, props, setting and cinematography. Sound is used to great effect in the horror of Dracula to communicate to the audience that it belongs in the horror genre. The audience can tell that this is a horror as dark deep music is used to suggest danger is close. The sound used is a sort of drumming music that is used throughout the horror of Dracula to keep the audience of the edge of there seat as they know that something scary is about to happen when the music kicks in. Props have been used to indicate to the audience that this is a horror as things such as blood, stakes and coffins have been used to give off traces that it is one of the famous gothic horrors that belong to the hammer horror studios. Once again theme of horror has been communicated through the use of setting. We can see this through the setting as the setting used is a castle in the middle that is sectioned off from the rest of the villages around it, the castle is in a place where no one can hear you and no one can help you, this communicates to the audience that not only is it a spooky place, but you wouldn’t want to get stuck there by yourself. Finally the cinematography also contributes to these traces that this film belongs to the horror genre as close-ups have mostly been used to get the facial expressions of characters to scare the audience and to petrify them.

What makes Dracula so horrific is the character himself, the close up of his facial expressions are what mostly scare me when watching this film as it is very frightening with the blood running down his chin from his teeth, its enough to send a chill up my spine like the picture below.

• the eyes also scare me as they are blod shot and frightening. Dracula's eyes here are also bold and pure black which makes me want to look away from him
• his teeth also scare me as they are larger than any humans teeth and the fact they have blood on them makes me feel uneasy as i know that hes been feasting in his prey (victim)
• also his face in general scares me by the way he is at the moment. Dacula looks as if he actually enjoys it so much and that he thrives on sucking the blood out of his victims necks

For me when watching this film the only thing that does scare me is the music and Dracula. The music scares me because it builds tension and suspense, as i dont know whats coming it scares me as i think something will pop out and make me jump but it always calms down in the end. Dracula scares me by the way he looks and his facial expressions he uses. His facial expressions scare me as there just so uneasy and un natural and they make me want to look away from the screen by the way he looks. also when he goes to prey on his victims, his face just looks so horrific and makes me want to look away.

The film was received well by the audience as they made comments such as ‘Terence Fisher's DRACULA is the best vampire film of all time. No other picture combines the right amounts of horror, humour, action, and eroticism’. Also other comments such as ‘I'm not a big fan of horror films but I was very impressed with this one, titled Horror Of Dracula’. ‘An outstanding film on all accounts! This is far and away a better vampire(Dracula) film then the Universal film because of its action and pace, its acting, and its rich musical score and lush cinematography’. However as much as there are many good reviews on the film Horror of Dracula there are also a few bad ones amongst the pile such as this one ‘Don't quite understand the popularity of this one – I found it 82 of the longest minutes of my life’.

These are some of the key scenes within the film that i think are most important to the anrrative and to the audience.

Dracula Is A Sexual Predator - Plan

The Castle Is An Inviting Prison - Plan

How are women represented as inferior and sexualised beings in The Horror Of Dracula (Terrance Fisher)?

When looking at this question I decided to break it down and look at it in more detail; for example the way the word ‘women’ is used in the question shows there is an issue with gender within this film. It can clearly be stated that there is an issue with gender in The horror Of Dracula as throughout the film the men are always more higher up and more stronger than the women who are more vulnerable and likely to give in to Dracula’s seductions. It can also be said that this can be linked with the codes and conventions of horror and the typical representations that you get from characters within this genre; for example within this film you have the traditional damsel in distress who is always screaming and who the audience tend to want to be the next victim so that they don’t have to hear scream and cry anymore, in this case the damsel in distress in The Horror Of Dracula is Lucy.

The time that this film was made and the time that it was set in could contribute to the fact that women are represented as inferior sexualised beings as this is around the time that women weren’t the ones to work and only had to be there as a wife to the men who went out and worked for there living. In this film, the day and age it was set in could communicate the fact that women are being represented as sexualised beings as all they were needed for was relaxation for the alpha male who went to work and put food on the table for his family.

When you look at the word inferior you can define it as saying someone is beneath, mediocre or lower than you and say that the women are inferior to the men is making a strong point about gender and you would need a lot of points to back this up, however the horror of count Dracula does give you a lot of points as it is always the women who give in to the men in this film as Dracula is let in by the women so they he can feed on his prey. Where as the men stand up to Dracula and do not allow this as they put up a struggle with him and try to put an end to his life. This is one of the reasons that women are represented as more sub standard compared to the men in this film who like in other horror films seem to save the day and rescue the women from the antagonist.

Some people may argue against this statement saying that within this film there maybe evidence of women being inferior to men, however this is set in a time where most people thought this but this isn’t politically correct anymore as women and men are seen as equals in the society of this day and age. Furthermore the part about woman being sexualised beings in this film is not a point that you would like to argue against as it is clearly shown throughout this film that woman are sexualised beings as one of the characters has used a low cleavage in order to give evidence to this quote. Also when Dracula looks to strike again on his victims, he doesn’t have a struggle in doing this as the woman is sprawled out in a sexual inviting way on the bed waiting for him. This is contrasted with another one of the characters costume as she has her dress done write up to her chin, covering her body and neck and not leaving a piece of flesh to be seen by the human eye.

Finally coming to the final word within the question which is ‘sexualised’ when thinking of sexualised, things such as to have sexual allocations spring to mind as within the film you can clearly see that the women are vulnerable and that the men stand tall and strong and with hold from the clutches of Dracula where as the women they seem to struggle with holding off Draculas waves of hunting as they always seem to give into him so easily. The women can be seen as sexualised again in this film as they always seemed to be laying there just waiting for him to feed off their blood.

In-conclusion women can be seen as inferior and sexualised in the film The Horror Of Dracula as they are sub standard compared to mean they are vulnerable when it comes to keeping away from Dracula. You could also say that they almost enjoy what Dracula does to them and that they have no control of the emotions that possess them when he comes to feed.