Crazy guys at Dracula's Castle

Here is a short clip with a beautiful Ferrari, two crazy guys and...Bran Castle. They present Bran as Dracula's Castle, but we know it had few connections with Vlad III Dracula:

Dracula - Dead and Loving It - Part 2

Second part of "Dracula - Dead and Loving It" by Columbia Pictures, directed by Mel Brooks

As for today, the movie is rated 5.0/10 , but some say it is underrated.

Blood for Dracula

Directed by Paul Morrissey, the movie was released in 1974.
Here is the trailer :

Nosferatu, Dracula

here are squences from the film Nosferatu, based on Bram Stoker's DRACULA novel:

The film is considered one of the best German expressionist films

Dracula Castle vs. Bran Castle

I found this video clip about Bran Castle on the Internet. Let's try to analyze it carefully and see where it's true and what are the mistakes, if there are any.



First, it begins with Beethoven's 9th symphony, I like it. Now let's go to the subject:
- "Bran Castle is often named Dracula's Castle" - true. Romania proudly presents Bran as Dracula's Castle but there are other places more closely connected with the history of Vlad III Dracula.

- "First attestation in 1377" - seems to be true, see my other post here about how Bran Castle looked like in the middle ages

- "built on a rock" - indeed, the Castle is erected on a rock between the mountains.

- "Vlad Tepes protected his people from invaders and fight for justice". Well, he indeed he protected Wallachia and he did it very well. And declaratively fought for justice; but what kind of justice is that when he killed innocent kids after killing them parents, just to avoid revenge ?

- Vlad III was well known for the punishment he adopted: the impalement. True. This was not the only method, but maybe his favorite. And the psichological impact over the people is very very powerfull. In fact in romanian ŢEAPA means pale and Ţepeş means the impaler.

- Almost any crime from lying and stealing to killing could be punished by imaplement. TRUE. and any potential political rival could be punished the same.

- Dracula used various methods of torture, including cutting the limbs, blinding, strangulation...burning, cutting the nose, etc - true. But there is another reason beneath these tortures: Physical integrity was a must for acceding to the Wallachian throne, therefore some of the political rivals were being mutilated just to became unable to seize the throne anymore (during the history we met some exceptions from this rule however).

- Death by impalement was slow and painfull - true. Sometime I might post another...well...post, only about this. Vital organs where not affected directly so it could last for days and days. Dying usually happened by thirsty.

- Vlad Tepes was killed by Laiota Basarab and died in a forest near Bucharest - not entirely true: we don't know who killed Vlad , there are three possible reasons for his death. Indeed, he died somehere near Bucharest.

- In this forest there is a lake called "witches". Here is always foggy and thunder and lightning hits forest frequently. Animals never touch the water and people talk about a lot of strange things that happened in past times. Officialy there is no lake with this name, at least as far as I know. About the fog, thunders and the rest, this is still to be proved.

- We need a new leader for our people to fight for justice- That's absolutely TRUE.

The last two minutes are really beautiful and I prefer not to ruin them with my commets.
Overall the video is really nice and I have to thank the author for posting it.

Dracula brand

French writer of romanian roots, Jean-Loup Sulitzer negiciated with Local Council of Braşov promoting of Dracula brand. For promoting the brand „Dracula Braşov Transilvania”, the Local Council of Braşov had to invest 2% of the total amount and obtain 20% of the income.

"We talk about promoting the legend represented by Dracula worldwide" declared Sulitzer; but did not answer journalists' questions about the estimated income, neither did he answer the questions about the business plan. Sulitzer is under process in France for arms traffic and money washing, and he admited it. He threatened the journalists that he will suit everyone who would dare writing something bad about him.

Dracula's Castle in books

I have recently been in UK. While browsing Patricia Schultz's book "1,000 Places to See Before You Die: A Traveler's Life List" in Waterstone's I stopped at the pages about Romania. Few pages, of which I was mainly interested if she mentions any connection with Dracula. Of course, "Count Dracula's Castle in Romania" was presented as being Bran Castle. As mentioned before, Vlad III Dracula was not a count, but a Wallachia’s ruler.
Also, he has few connections with Bran Castle, seems like he only staid there for a few nights, so this can hardly be considered as Dracula's Castle.

I was really disappointed. A book that seems very serious, with lots of references all over the Internet, is not documented. the places shown are really interesting, mainly the Italian points, but I would like to see some serious info , not just the tourist buzz-places.

Anyway, I'm happy to find out that Dracula related places are among the 1000 most interesting places in the world.