Headscratchers / Bram Stoker's Dracula

• Why didn't Dracula die when Jonathan slit his throat and Quincey stabbed him in the heart? That's how he died in the book.
  • Because of Mina, he held on for that much longer just to say his final goodbyes to her. A more logical explanation I have in mind is that perhaps Quincy missed but still did enough damage, coupled with Jonathan's throat slit and the loss of blood afterwards, to put Drac on the throes of death.
    • In the movie it's very clear the wound isn't quite as deep as it can go. It's possible it missed the heart in this version and he doesn't seem really impaled until Mina pushes it all the way through. He's not actually killed in this version until he's decapitated.
• On that note, why couldn't Mina just let Jonathan, Quincey and Arthur kill Dracula? Would the outcome have been any different whether or not they killed him? In any case, Dracula is the vampire who terrorized Jonathan and murdered Mina's best friend, turning her into a vampire that preys on children.
  • This version of Mina really is (or at least seems to be) Count Dracula's reincarnated wife. She's remembering things which she can't possibly remember and has genuinely fallen in love with him. The tension in the final third of the movie is the discovery that Dracula is both the man she loves (and her past life loved) with the fact he tortured then murdered her best friend.
  • So why did Van Helsing stop them as well? He doesn't have any emotional ties to Dracula.
  • He has a Heel Realization and says "we've become God's madmen" after Jonathan says that their work is finished, and it's now Mina's job to finish him off. Mina says "when my time comes, will you do the same to me", telling the others she's going to kill Dracula.
• Why the hell is there blood in the stone cross and in the other sculptures in the church?
  • You're taking it way too literally. It's symbolic - Dracula not just renouncing God but destroying the cross as an act of defiance. Beforehand Dracula was a sworn disciple for God and fought in his name, defending Romania from followers of a different religion. So he goes from one of God's most exalted disciples to renouncing him completely - that's going to prompt a massive divine reaction. Maybe it was meant to scare Dracula into realising what he was about to do, but it didn't work.
  • However if one were to dribble some literalism with the question, the cross might contain the blood of a saint. That doesn’t explain the blood pouring elsewhere though.
  • One interpretation I've heard is that that cross contains bloodstone. I.e. — Dracula attacks something made of literal Holy Ground, thus cursing the room.
  • On that note, how do you pierce stone with a sword?
    • By stabbing it into the stone as in the scene. It's not like it's indestructible and you use metal to cut stone.
• Why does Vlad wear muscle-like armor in the intro when there are no real-life reports of him wearing that type of armor?
  • For the same reason there are no reports of him being a vampire.
  • He also wasn't the ruler of Transylvania. Creative license and stylism galore.
• Why is Dracula's hairdo shaped like a giant butt?!
  • Dracula is screwing up his meeting with Jonathan because he hasn't had guests in literal centuries and is trying (badly) to look nonthreatening as well as deal with him in a human-to-human manner. Indeed, you might argue part of the reason he keeps Jonathan prisoner is because he's trying to figure out how people behave in the modern era.
  • Noblemen in Eastern Europe used to have exactly that kind of haircut or sometimes wigs. Coppola was probably going for historical accuracy as the Bela Lugosi's look is historically very inaccurate. Of course it looks silly for modern audiences.
  • The hair may also loosely evoke bat ears in the same way Dracula's war helm does.
  • Probably hard to get your hair to look good when you have no reflection.
• In the blood transfusion scene, why did Seward put the transferred blood in a jar when it would be more useful in Lucy's veins?
  • They're crossmatching the blood. If the blood clots in the jar, then Godalming and Lucy have incomparable blood types, and performing the transfusion would kill her. In the novel, Lucy receives blood from Godalming, Quincy, Seward and Van Helsing without such a test, and somehow survives (likely she has AB+ blood, the universal recipient).
• Ok, so, why is Renfield wearing those gloves?
  • On that note, why is everybody else at the asylum wearing cages on their heads?
  • For the same reason- to keep the inmates from harming the orderlies. It'd be really difficult (if not outright impossible) to harm someone with their hands wrapped up and encumbered like that, and it's hardly a stretch to imagine that the really crazy ones go for the soft parts of the face 99% of the time.
• So...is Christianity the correct religion in this world or not? Because some things imply it is, but Mina's reincarnation suggests it is not.
  • Dracula dies and "it is implied" that he and Elisabeta are reunited in Heaven, which would be impossible if Mina is the current incarnation of the soul formerly known as Elisabeta. Maybe they just happen to look similar?
  • Judging from what we see in the movie, Mina has her own soul, but Elisabeta's has been unable to move on (either because she committed suicide or she refused to move on until she and Dracula were Together in Death). So Elisabeta's spirit was dormant in Mina until Dracula was able to reawaken her. So throughout the film Mina is battling with her true self and the spirit of Elisabeta. Dracula's death is what allows Elisabeta to also leave Mina and go to Heaven with him.
  • Here's a wild possibility. What if Mina isn't Elisabeta's incarnation, but Dracula is convinced that she is and hypnotises Mina into thinking so. She doesn't start to develop feelings for him until he's performed hypnosis of some kind on her. But in killing him, it removes the hypnosis and she can be herself again?
  • Another possibility is that this movie is about an "esoteric Christianity", divergent from the official doctrine in some points. The final image may not be contemporary to the rest of the scene, maybe is a flashforward.
  • It's also in the Bible for God to send visions and prophecies, so maybe Mina was sent those to make sure Dracula was stopped and redeemed at long last.