Dracula Today?

Watching the 1930 and 1979 Universal productions of Dracula back-to-back the other day, (you'd have thought that they'd have released a new version in 1980, for the fiftieth anniversary of the original, but I guess that studio PRs were less savvy back then), it struck me again that the time is surely right for a radical topical reinterpretation of the story.  With hordes of illegal immigrants - many from Eastern Europe - if we are to believe the likes of Reform UK, arriving on British shores in boats, then a story about a mysterious man from Romania washing up here after a shipwreck, has surely never been more relevant.  Obviously, in a modern reworking, Dracula wouldn't be sailing to the UK on a regular merchant vessel like the 'Demeter', but instead would try sneaking in by night aboard a small boat.  Perhaps that could be a good opening - a small rubber boat washes ashore with all of its occupants dead through blood loss.  All, that is, except for a large black dog that jumps ashore and runs off before anyone can catch it.  (I know, he'd still have to find a way of getting his coffin lined with Transylvanian earth into the UK, but maybe he's had it strapped under a lorry coming across on a ferry, or something).  Once established in the UK, he could set up a series of dodgy business fronts, (Turkish barbers, Asian supermarkets and the other sorts of businesses that are apparently used for money laundering), employing illegal immigrants on below minimum wage level pay and avoiding tax via dodgy accountancy schemes.  His economic bleeding of the UK through this network could mirror his actual bleeding of the British population.  Instead of creepy old Carfax Abbey, he'd obviously be ensconced in a luxury penthouse in some fashionable part of London.

But where would the anti-immigration fanatics like Nigel Farage fit into this modernised interpretation?  Of course, they'd doubtless like to see themselves cast as the heroes - the fearless immigrant/vampire hunters who, although ridiculed by the mainstream media as cranks are, in reality, the only ones who can see the truth.  The problem with this scenario is that their ilk actually have a pretty bad record of accepting large sums of money from those dodgy Eastern European billionaires they seem to admire so much.  So, if a guy claiming to be a Romanian count offered to make sizeable financial 'donations' to their political parties, then I could see the likes of Farage becoming the Renfield character - in thrall to the count and eating bugs as everyone else think he's going insane - rather than the Van Helsing character.  The latter was, of course, a weird old foreigner in the original novel, so maybe that would still be appropriate in our updated reimagining of the story - some kind of swinging Dutch EU Commissioner for the Occult, perhaps, who uses cannabis rather than garlic to ward off vampires.  Or maybe, irony of ironies, the authorities finally realise that the only person who can help them is a refugee Congolese illegal immigrant who still practices traditional African magic which, rather than Christianity, which has been diluted and corrupted by capitalism, can ward off vampires.  

There have, of course, been a number of attempts to produce contemporary versions of Dracula, but none, in my opinion, have really succeeded.  None of them ever really got to grips with properly integrating Dracula into the modern world and finding suitable modern analogies for the various tropes and trappings of the original narrative.  Hammer had a pretty decent attempt with The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973), with Dracula masquerading as a powerful property magnate, but they still insisted on him turning up in full vampire regalia to do the evil stuff, thereby, at a stroke, making him seen anachronistic and completely out of place in the contemporary world.  It would seem more logical nowadays, with current levels of media scrutiny on the wealthy and celebrities, rather than arrive openly and buy ostentatious and expensive properties which would surely attract attention, the count would prefer to sneak into the country undetected and operate as a shadowy presence, never exposing himself to the threat of publicity.  So the refugee route would make a certain degree of sense, as would the exploitation of illegals immigrants and use of innocent-looking but crooked businesses as fronts.  The rest writes itself, really.