In an entertainment industry crowded with vampires, a great-grand nephew of Bram Stoker has set out to reclaim the legacy of the original Dracula.

CBC reports:
Dacre Stoker worked with New York horror screenwriter and member of The Transylvanian Society of Dracula Ian Holt to create Dracula: The Undead, due for release on Thursday.

Stoker, born in Montreal and a former teacher at Appleby College in Oakville, Ont., coached the Canadian Olympic Pentathlon team at the 1988 games in Seoul. Now living in South Carolina, he is not an obvious choice to write what he considers the first legitimate sequel to Bram Stoker's Dracula.

In an interview with CBC's Q cultural affairs show, Stoker said Holt drew him into the creative realm. "He wanted to do a movie, but thought he would do a book first. What better to have for the first time in 112 years, a Stoker involved in bringing some legacy back to Bram Stoker," he said.

Stoker wanted to restore some of the original spirit of his great grand-uncle's creation, one that has been diluted by scores of suave leading men playing the vampire, beginning with Bela Lugosi. "Bram's Dracula was an gnarly old guy, hair on the hands, not attractive to females, he had to charm them or suck their blood — he was an animal. Through stage and screen adaptions if you look at the continuum of how that character arrived, they needed sexy leading men to sell tickets," Stoker said. READ MORE