Thursday, February 23, 2017

Viking Dracula?

Around 110 years ago....some Icelandic writer (there were a handful at that point)....that had taken the work of Bram Soker and rewrote Dracula, with some Icelandic slant.

Not much is remembered over this....but the topic came up in the last week or two.  There is a Icelandic film producer  who is working out the idea of bringing this to a TV series.  The working title so far?  "Powers of Darkness".

The 1900 book was written by Valdimar Asmundsson (he died in 1902 curiously enough).  Some suggest that correspondence did occur between Stoker and Asmundsson....so there is some connectivity between the two.

If you've never been to Iceland....it is a place where you could imagine a Dracula-like character hanging out and being part of the culture.  Naturally, there would be some problems.

In July, the sun really never sets....so for a six-week period, there just isn't any darkness.  An Icelandic Dracula would have some problems.

In December, the sun is up for barely 90 minutes, so an Icelandic Dracula would be carousing for more than 22 hours out of the day.

There is also the problem in that there are only a limited number of people in Iceland....so victims disappearing would trigger a national emergency.

Then you have the fatal character flaws of most Icelandic people....Viking-like coldness and stoic in attitude to the ninth-degree.  The Icelandic Dracula might go a whole week without saying much beyond 'good morning'.

It's hard to say if this TV series idea will be a serious Dracula-piece or some Icelandic comedy over a wannabe Dracula-viking guy.  The odd thing is that this will attract more attention to Iceland, and ensure even MORE tourists in the future.

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