I dreamt last night that Christopher Lee, who played Dracula in the Hammer Films horror movies, walked through this room I was sitting in; he looked extremely tired, depressed, slouchy, old. I mean, he's old now, but he looked old in a different way in my dream...old as in jaded & exhausted. In the next scene he was trying to have sex with this bawdy wench from a Hammer Film--you know, like a European barmaid from the Victorian era or something. And she stopped and pushed him away and said: no, I just can't do it if you're not wearing the cape.

For some background, I thought Lee was dead sexy (literally) as Count Dracula in those Hammer movies. So it was weird to see him in this dream as totally unsexy. Or was he always kinda unsexy & it really was the cape & fangs that made him stand out?

Dracula - now there's a real vampire. Not those sorrowful Anne Rice creations or the "Vampire with a soul', Angel. Lee's Dracula was a nasty, scary bloodsucker who should be proud to be called 'Vampire'.

'Nosferatu' is the same. The 1922 version I mean - the remake wasn't half as good, although Kinski made an ok job of it. Willem Dafoe was pretty good in 'Shadow of the Vampire' although the ending was dire in my opinion.

But to return to Lee - His first few Dracula films (the ones set in the 1800's with Peter Cushing as Van Helsing) are classic, as is 'Brides of Dracula' (which Lee wasn't in for some reason). I don't think much of the later outings though - Dracula in the 70's - no thanks.