I Was a Teenage Werewolf and Bram Stoker's Dracula

Through watching I Was a Teenage Werewolf I recognized some similarities between this film and Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The main difference between this film and Bram Stoker’s are that in I Was a Teenage Werewolf the main antagonist is a werewolf, whereas in Dracula the main antagonist is a vampire, who has control over wolves who serve him and bring him his prey when he can’t’ hunt. There are other minor differences as well as many similarities that I’m not going to touch discuss, but rather I will talk on an aspect that fascinated me.

What remains the fascinating aspect to me is that in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, after Dr. Van Helsing, Arthur Holmwood, and Quincey Morris trap Lucy in the cemetary and succeed in driving a stake through her heart and cutting off her head, she returns to her previous lovely, beautiful, innocent, and peaceful looking self. This is interesting, for the same happens in the film I Was a Teenage Werewolf. After Sergeant Donovan shoots Tony in his werewolf form when they

catch him in the office/laboratory of Dr. Brandon, he returns to his normal human form. In addition, there are no bullet holes in his body, which suggest that through killing him in his werewolf form they have cleansed his body of the evil that had been infused into him by Dr. Brandon. This is the case with the murder of Lucy Westenra in Bram Stoker’s Dracula as well. Before the three gentleman kill the soul of the vampire that lives inside her, it is said that her eyes were “ ‘unclean and full of hell fire, instead of the pure, gentle orbs we knew.’ ” (Vampire Nomad) After, however, the three men vanquish the evil that had resided in and controlled Lucy, her “true death gives her back her purity and untainted beauty.” (Vampire Nomad) I think this concept of these two characters receiving back their previous human form is an interesting concept, and provokes thought into the insinuations of our own human nature, and the potential for evil that lives inside every one of us.

Tony after he is shot and killed by Sergeant Donovan. http://www.comingsoon.net/horror/features/796871-why-1957s-i-was-a-teenage-werewolf-is-an-american-tragedy http://www.monstershack.net/sp/index.php/i-was-a-teenage-werewolf-1957/ http://vampirenomad.com/blog/2013/8/7/draculas-lucy-westenra-an-analysis