Nightmares Before Halloween 4: Allegedly Religious, Lesbian-Porn Dracula Sequel

If jack-o-fetuses don't instruct your local children in the true Christian meaning of Halloween, you may wish to try on them Dracula: The Undead, a sequel to the famous vampire potboiler co-authored by Dacre Stoker, a descendent of original author Bram. It sounds like what you'd expect -- more violence, more sex than the Victorian forebear ("Bram kept a tight lid on the violence and sex," enthuses Fangoria; "Dacre, however, holds nothing back") -- and a movie is in the works.

But at National Review, S.T. Karnick tells us that this gore 'n' gettin' it on also has a religious dimension. "It retains the spiritual emphasis of the earlier book," Karnick tells us, "and provides some interesting new angles on it." (If you had not previously detected the theological import of the original, Karnick reviews the telltale signs -- crucifixes, etc -- and laments that so many uncareful readers have "overwhelmingly neglected the obvious religious intent of the story")...

Among the godly bits in Dracula: the Un-Dead: The Count is now revealed to be "a protector of Christendom," and D:tU-D offers in his place "a new main villain, a sadistic, lesbian vampire called Elizabeth Bathory." There are also many mentions of God and Evil, and telling descriptors like "The only human for whom Bathory held any respect was Charles Darwin," demonstrating that Bathory is "a stand-in for the Devil." Karnick applauds this "acknowledgment of the spiritual foundation of evil," and concludes, "Let's hope that this time the books' central notion will remain un-dead a good deal longer."

Other readers see the thing differently. "Full on blood & guts, with a bit of lesbian sex thrown in!" gushes one Amazon reviewer. "A torture scene that comes across as lesbian vampire porn," notes the Washington Post. Well, you won't have to keep after the kids to read it, anyway. And if that doesn't Christian 'em up, you can show them Halloween, and explain that the Donald Pleasence character is the raisonneur.