Dracula (2006 film)

Dracula is a 2006 television adaptation of Bram Stoker's 1897 novel, originally broadcast as a two-part miniseries in the UK on 28 and 29 December 2006. Produced by Granada Television for WGBH Boston and BBC Wales, directed by Bill Eagles and written by Stewart Harcourt, the film reimagines the story with a plot centered on a lord who summons the vampire to England in hopes of curing his syphilis.

In 1899, Arthur Holmwood learns he has syphilis shortly after his engagement to Lucy Westenra. Knowing the disease will kill them both, he contacts an occult group called the Brotherhood, led by Alfred Singleton. Singleton claims to know someone who can cure Arthur, but at a cost. Lucy's best friend, Mina Murray, is engaged to solicitor Jonathan Harker. Lord Holmwood hires Harker's firm to sell properties to Count Dracula in Transylvania. After Harker departs, his employer Peter Hawkins is murdered, and the transaction documents vanish. Singleton confesses to the murder, telling Arthur that the "young man" will never return.

In Transylvania, Jonathan meets the 900-year-old vampire Dracula, who imprisons him and assumes a youthful appearance by drinking his blood, then sails for England on the Demeter. Arthur is initiated into Dracula's cult during a Black Mass. The Demeter beaches at Whitby during a storm, found empty except for the dead captain and empty crates. Mina senses something has happened to Jonathan, and Lucy invites her to stay. Mina's fears are confirmed when she learns Jonathan was supposed to be on the ship.

Arthur grows cold and distant, obsessed with Dracula, while Lucy worries their marriage remains unconsummated. She encounters Dracula, who consoles her and introduces himself. Arthur, enraged to find Dracula in his home, feels powerless as the Count reveals a predatory homoerotic desire for him. That night, Dracula visits Lucy, slips into her bed, seduces her, and persuades her to drink his blood. Dr. John Seward, Arthur's old friend, grows suspicious when Arthur refuses to take Lucy to the hospital. Arthur forces Seward at gunpoint to give her a blood transfusion from his own arm. Lucy dies the next morning, and Seward believes Arthur is responsible.

Investigating, Seward finds the Brotherhood's Chelsea home, where Singleton and others have been murdered.