The director of the latest movie in the bloodsucker tradition explains why he went back to the Transylvanian source for his version of one of cinema’s enduring adaptations

We are all drawn to archetypal stories. Fairytales, folktales, fables, myths: we tell them over and over again because they always have meaning in our lives. We can always see reflections of ourselves in Hansel and Gretel, Oedipus and King Lear. They can mean different things at different stages of our lives and be interpreted in different ways by individuals sitting in the same audience.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula is among them. It one of the most influential novels of the turn of the last century and, along with the stories of Sherlock Holmes and Jesus Christ, among the most adapted works in cinema history.