DREK-ULA

BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA (1992)
dir: Francis Ford Coppola

The image we know of Dracula is the one created by Bela Lugosi for the 1931 Tod Browning film and assumed public domain because it has not been enforced and been used and parodied several times in several venues. Universal still owns the trademark. In order do yet another adaptation of Dracula that looked nothing like the others and guaranteed nothing was infringed upon, Francis Ford Coppola pretended those other versions never existed and did a straight film adaptation of the 1897 novel.

DREK-ULA
MAD #334, June 1993
w: Dick DeBartolo
a: Mort Drucker

You know the story. Vlad the Impaler rises from the grave four centuries later to avenge the death of his wife. Jonathan Harker (Keanu Reeves) has been hired to handle Count Dracula (Gary Oldman)'s properties in London. While staying at his home there, he realizes something is up.

Jonathan's fiance Mina (Winona Ryder) is staying at the home of her friend Lucy (Sadie Frost). Dracula appears at her home in the form of a wolf, seducing Lucy and while making love to her makes her a vampire. Dracula appears more youthful in daylight and thinking Mina is the reincarnation of his dead wife, follows her as she walks about town and pursues her.

Renfield (Tom Waits) is in the introductory panel here but is not featured in the parody. Arthur Holmwood (Cary Elwes) and Quincey (Billy Campbell) help Van Helsing in his vampire hunt but aren't featured in this parody much. Gary Hart, Bill Clinton, and Ted Kennedy are only featured because the joke was that they were the political horndogs of the early 90s.

Lucy doesn't know that she has become a vampire. She is just pale and sick. Dr. Van Helsing (Anthony Hopkins) checks up on her and discovers she last lost all her blood and there are puncture wounds in her neck. Her actions later that night before her death confirm the transformation. Van Helsing, who also specializes in killing vampires, does so after she crosses over. Later, Van Helsing eats out with Harker and Mina.

Kramer is not in the movie. Seinfeld just happened to be the most popular show of the 90s.

That's Sergio Aragones featured in the top right panel. His The Shadow Knows feature, showing what was really going on in a person's head, was a regular feature in MAD.

Because Harker handled Dracula's affairs, he can bring the vampire hunters to him. Dracula has already hypnotically seduced Mina, but after she kisses him and makes him young again, kills him herself, breaking the curse.

That's the cast of L. A. Law again as the Disney lawyers.

DRACULA (1979)
dir:John Badham

DRECULA
Cracked #165, December 1979
a: John Severin

Dracula was also adapted into a 1979 film, which was parodied then by Cracked.

Jonathan Harker (Trevor Eve) is still in charge of Dracula (Frank Langella)'s properties, but in this version his is engaged to Lucy Seward (Kate Nelligan) and Mina (Jan Francis) is Van Helsing (Laurence Olivier)'s daughter.

Count Dracula has just had a dinner with Lucy and her father (Donald Pleasance). The butler cutting himself is the first sign he might be a vampire.

After Mina goes to bed, Dracula creeps into her bedroom. Lucy returns from her secret affair with Jonathan and returns to the bedroom she shares with Mina to notice her writhing in pain before she dies. Lucy's father, a doctor, examines her, and finds no cause of her death, and does not find the two puncture wounds to be related.

Dr. Seward has invited informed Dr. Van Helsing of Mina's death and invited him to stay with them during the funeral. They and Lucy have been invited to Dracula's mansion which they have declined but she has accepted.

Van Helsing has dug up Mina's grave because he believes the puncture wounds to be a vampire bite. His suspicions that she is undead, has escaped her coffin, and burrowed through the ground turn out to be true and he destroys what remains of her. Now when Van Helsing and Dr. Seward come home they find Lucy is also pale and sick. Because she has been bitten by Dracula, a blood transfusion can not save her from his spell.

The only way to break the spell now is to kill Dracula.

The parody omits the love scenes between Dracula and Lucy.

Dr. Seward has his own daughter locked up to protect her, but Dracula has managed to kidnap her and has escaped to Transylvania with her, and the doctors and Jonathan track down the ship that's carrying the coffin Dracula and Lucy are in.

Van Helsing attempts to kill Dracula, but fails, getting impaled himself. Jonathan Harker catches Dracula and kills him with sunlight.

COUNT DRACULAS
Crazy#57, December 1979
a: Murad Gumen

Crazy did their take on the ubiquity of Dracula films, showing how it started with Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee, but started getting out of hand, particularly in that year with the Frank Langella film, George Hamilton in Love at First Bite, and also that year's Nosferatu the Vampyre.

Pictured at the beginning of this is Gene Wilder.

The German edition featured Don Martin's piece as a cover feature

MAD #213, March 1980
w & a: Don Martin

While not a parody of the movie but just the vampire legend as we know it, it was published around the same time to tie in. It would have to be considered a movie parody since other countries don't consider 'Dracula' and 'vampire' synonymous.

UPDATE:

BRAN STUCKEY'S DRECULA
Cracked Monster Party #34, Winter 1996 (probably reprinted from an earlier issue)
a: Rurik Tyler