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Dracula Began
160 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1976
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 30, 2014
One of a spate of Dracula related literature that came out in the 1970's. I only read it because I am a vampire enthusiast....skip it unless you want to read every piece of Dracula related work out there. I don't really buy the mixing of Vlad Tepes and the Dracula story as presented here. Plus, spoiler, the old chestnut of a vampire chasing the hero through his darkened castle during the daytime....pull down a curtain, in comes the sun bye, bye, Count.
October 18, 2018
I am very excited to be one of the first to review this book!
I first found this book on my parents bookshelf when we were moving. I only kept it because it had "Dracula" in the title. When I finally pulled it out to read this month and looked at the synopsis on the back, I immediately wanted to read it. Not because it sounded good, but because it sounds like the most stereotypical 1970's book ever published. I was fortunately very right.
Where do I begin? The framing device is a hilarious. Two girls, Debbie and Lisa, are hitchhiking traveling through Europe, where they are driven to Dracula's castle by the driver who picks them up (This guy works for Dracula picking up victims for him). They are promptly trapped in Dracula's clutches as expected. One particularly odd yet important plot point is one of the girls always eats Hershey bars, and leaves a wrapper on the side of the road. The fact that this is her only defining character trait is the funniest thing I've ever seen.
Two more characters with equally silly 70's names (Frank and Greg) are looking for the girls when they spot the Hershey wrapper and begin to investigate. They find another in the drivers car and follow him back to where he works. They find him to be suspicious, with odd old books in his office. One character takes one and they leave. They begin reading the old, handwritten book, which is about the childhood of a man named Vlad Dracul, nicknamed Dracula.
The framing device is still tossed in here and there, giving the book a severe tone problem. After describing tales of Dracula's past, it will cut back to Frank and Greg going "Gee whiz, this Dracula guy sure is weird! Let's like, totally keep reading!" It's hilarious and jarring and does not match the rest of the story at all.
Now, about what the book is supposed to be about. Do you remember the 2014 film 'Dracula Untold'? This weak story could be the premise for the prequel. When you read Dracula, did you ever think, "Wow, I wonder what his human childhood was like! I bet he had mommy, daddy, and brother issues! I bet he was an angsty child obsessed with his dead mother!" You didn't? Oh right, because Dracula is only interesting as a vampire!
This attempt at a backstory is really cheap. His mother died, his older brother Mircea was a meanie to him as children, his stepmother was a meanie, he and his little brother were sent to be hostages to the Turks, and said Turks imprisoned him only after he threatened to leave. How horrible! This is a totally reasonable reason for him to become evil. Dracula completely justifies his reasoning for killing his brother because as children, he bullied him.
The only interesting little detail was Dracula's obsession with keeping boxes of earth from his homeland was because of nightmares he had of his mother. That was one detail of the original book that never made it into mainstream vampire lore, so I liked seeing the small detail focused on.
The story ends with Frank and Greg finding Dracula's castle and confronting him. When they try to save the girls, they see they have been turned into vampires too. When they finally face Dracula, they mention they read his story. I am not joking, Dracula immediately says, "Really? You read my book? Wasn't it tragic? Doesn't it totally show how sad my life is, and why it's completely reasonable that I became a horrible monster?" The boys try to escape, but Dracula stops them because he still wants to talk about the book he wrote on his life! He was very obsessed with it, and I was laughing the entire time I read it!
The last few pages are dedicated to the boys with the driver trying to kill the vampires as they slept. They kill the girls, then fail to kill Dracula, who chases them. He then begins to be affected by the sun, starting to die as the boys escape.(mind you, the canon Dracula was never damaged by the sun, only weakened and unable to turn into monsters.) The end. A dead end to a dead on arrival story.
I do not recommend this book to anyone. This book is a small and worthless piece of work. It tries to give Dracula a back story which adds nothing to his character or his already established lore. There was a reason Bram Stoker and other authors of the character don't go into detail about his human life: because it is incidental to him as a vampire!! He is only interesting as a vampiric villain, not as a teenager running away from home! This is one aspect that made the 'Dracula Untold' film boring and unnecessary.
Now, I do not hate this book. It's harmless. It's only 160 pages. I am not condemning the author for destroying the lore of Dracula. It was a simple cheap 70's pulp novel. I knew that going in. It is not a necessary read, but if short, cheap and laughable horror fiction is up your alley, then be my guest!
I first found this book on my parents bookshelf when we were moving. I only kept it because it had "Dracula" in the title. When I finally pulled it out to read this month and looked at the synopsis on the back, I immediately wanted to read it. Not because it sounded good, but because it sounds like the most stereotypical 1970's book ever published. I was fortunately very right.
Where do I begin? The framing device is a hilarious. Two girls, Debbie and Lisa, are hitchhiking traveling through Europe, where they are driven to Dracula's castle by the driver who picks them up (This guy works for Dracula picking up victims for him). They are promptly trapped in Dracula's clutches as expected. One particularly odd yet important plot point is one of the girls always eats Hershey bars, and leaves a wrapper on the side of the road. The fact that this is her only defining character trait is the funniest thing I've ever seen.
Two more characters with equally silly 70's names (Frank and Greg) are looking for the girls when they spot the Hershey wrapper and begin to investigate. They find another in the drivers car and follow him back to where he works. They find him to be suspicious, with odd old books in his office. One character takes one and they leave. They begin reading the old, handwritten book, which is about the childhood of a man named Vlad Dracul, nicknamed Dracula.
The framing device is still tossed in here and there, giving the book a severe tone problem. After describing tales of Dracula's past, it will cut back to Frank and Greg going "Gee whiz, this Dracula guy sure is weird! Let's like, totally keep reading!" It's hilarious and jarring and does not match the rest of the story at all.
Now, about what the book is supposed to be about. Do you remember the 2014 film 'Dracula Untold'? This weak story could be the premise for the prequel. When you read Dracula, did you ever think, "Wow, I wonder what his human childhood was like! I bet he had mommy, daddy, and brother issues! I bet he was an angsty child obsessed with his dead mother!" You didn't? Oh right, because Dracula is only interesting as a vampire!
This attempt at a backstory is really cheap. His mother died, his older brother Mircea was a meanie to him as children, his stepmother was a meanie, he and his little brother were sent to be hostages to the Turks, and said Turks imprisoned him only after he threatened to leave. How horrible! This is a totally reasonable reason for him to become evil. Dracula completely justifies his reasoning for killing his brother because as children, he bullied him.
The only interesting little detail was Dracula's obsession with keeping boxes of earth from his homeland was because of nightmares he had of his mother. That was one detail of the original book that never made it into mainstream vampire lore, so I liked seeing the small detail focused on.
The story ends with Frank and Greg finding Dracula's castle and confronting him. When they try to save the girls, they see they have been turned into vampires too. When they finally face Dracula, they mention they read his story. I am not joking, Dracula immediately says, "Really? You read my book? Wasn't it tragic? Doesn't it totally show how sad my life is, and why it's completely reasonable that I became a horrible monster?" The boys try to escape, but Dracula stops them because he still wants to talk about the book he wrote on his life! He was very obsessed with it, and I was laughing the entire time I read it!
The last few pages are dedicated to the boys with the driver trying to kill the vampires as they slept. They kill the girls, then fail to kill Dracula, who chases them. He then begins to be affected by the sun, starting to die as the boys escape.(mind you, the canon Dracula was never damaged by the sun, only weakened and unable to turn into monsters.) The end. A dead end to a dead on arrival story.
I do not recommend this book to anyone. This book is a small and worthless piece of work. It tries to give Dracula a back story which adds nothing to his character or his already established lore. There was a reason Bram Stoker and other authors of the character don't go into detail about his human life: because it is incidental to him as a vampire!! He is only interesting as a vampiric villain, not as a teenager running away from home! This is one aspect that made the 'Dracula Untold' film boring and unnecessary.
Now, I do not hate this book. It's harmless. It's only 160 pages. I am not condemning the author for destroying the lore of Dracula. It was a simple cheap 70's pulp novel. I knew that going in. It is not a necessary read, but if short, cheap and laughable horror fiction is up your alley, then be my guest!
December 5, 2025
I want to start this off with: I have never read a Dracula book until now, which might mean this was the worst one to start off with, but as someone’s who’s never read Dracula I think I got a different light shed on it.
Other reviews I read talked about how “the cool thing about Dracula is him being a vampire, not a human”, which makes sense and is completely valid, but that’s if you have read other books and know him as a vampire. I never knew about him as a vampire, so reading about his backstory was really interesting to me, even if it’s not canon.
Now the problem with this book is: it’s not great. It swaps back and forth to past and present, interrupting the flow of the story, and the language is strange. They go back to the 1400’s and yet the 8 year old Dracula talks casually like this, instead of old English, which can really throw off the vibe and immersion. Luckily, it’s not too bad where it messes the entire story up.
The story itself is alright. Learning about Dracula was slow, but in the end I was actually intrigued by his ark and the vengeance he wants on his brother… even though he’s stupid for that.
The thing I didn’t like, is the modern day boys who were reading the story. They just felt out of place and when they finally confronted Dracula and mention the book, that part of the story is weird.
Major downside of this book: it was written like it’s a movie. Written as if a major motion picture was about to be made about it and the author wanted the story to go exactly as they wrote. This isn’t necessarily a problem, but when I read and can feel certain cuts or changes that would be used better in a cinematic way, it throws off the book, and makes me think you just wanted it to be good enough to be a movie, if that makes sense.
Overall, it’s a short book, it’s interesting, it’s occasionally funny. Is it a great book? No. But I enjoyed it.
Other reviews I read talked about how “the cool thing about Dracula is him being a vampire, not a human”, which makes sense and is completely valid, but that’s if you have read other books and know him as a vampire. I never knew about him as a vampire, so reading about his backstory was really interesting to me, even if it’s not canon.
Now the problem with this book is: it’s not great. It swaps back and forth to past and present, interrupting the flow of the story, and the language is strange. They go back to the 1400’s and yet the 8 year old Dracula talks casually like this, instead of old English, which can really throw off the vibe and immersion. Luckily, it’s not too bad where it messes the entire story up.
The story itself is alright. Learning about Dracula was slow, but in the end I was actually intrigued by his ark and the vengeance he wants on his brother… even though he’s stupid for that.
The thing I didn’t like, is the modern day boys who were reading the story. They just felt out of place and when they finally confronted Dracula and mention the book, that part of the story is weird.
Major downside of this book: it was written like it’s a movie. Written as if a major motion picture was about to be made about it and the author wanted the story to go exactly as they wrote. This isn’t necessarily a problem, but when I read and can feel certain cuts or changes that would be used better in a cinematic way, it throws off the book, and makes me think you just wanted it to be good enough to be a movie, if that makes sense.
Overall, it’s a short book, it’s interesting, it’s occasionally funny. Is it a great book? No. But I enjoyed it.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews