Summary: Vampires, Vamps and Va Va Voom | Patrick Spedding <a name="patrick-spedding" id="patrick-spedding"><strong><em>Dracula</em> (1979) as Paranormal Romance</strong></a> John Badham's <em>Dracula</em> (1979) has been described as a very romantic interpretation of the Bram Stoker's story, even the first Romantic interpretation of Dracula on screen. Frank Langella, who plays the eponymous hero, maintained that the defining feature of his Dracula was his refusal to be filmed biting necks and drinking blood. He wouldn't wear fangs, tattered funereal garb, pale face makeup, or contact lenses that changed the appearance of his eyes: he wanted to appear on screen as the impeccably-dressed lover of his victims, not their haggard destroyer. But there is more to a romantic narrative, especially a Paranormal Romance, than an impeccable smile and a clear shirt-front; and though the studio, director and writer of this film were sympathetic to Langella's "vision", each had different ideas about how to realize it on film. This paper will examine the main romance elements of Badham's <em>Dracula</em>, comparing them to typical elements in Paranormal Romance fiction, to assess whether the film succeeds a romance narrative or a horror story with a romantic sub-plot. Patrick Spedding is the author of <em>A Bibliography of Eliza Haywood</em> (2004) and the editor of <em>Script & Print.</em> He is an ARC-funded Research Fellow in the Daprtment of English at Monash University. His research project is an examination of the production and distribution of erotica in England in the eighteenth-century.
