Abstract

Dracula movie is a kind of gloomy atmosphere and scaring themes, usually contains some brutal events and aims at making audience frightened. In this paper, Chinese Dracula movies and American Dracula movies are compared from the aspects of plots and themes, characters and shoot skills. And the reasons for the differences are analyzed. By comparison and analysis, the paper gives some advice on the development of Chinese Dracula movies.

Key words: Dracula movie, plots and themes, character, shooting skill
 
摘 要

恐怖片是一种气氛阴森、题材可怖，通常包含一些暴力事件使观众毛骨悚然的影片。本文从内容和主题、角色和拍摄手法三个方面入手，将中国恐怖电影和美国恐怖电影进行对比，并且分析导致不同的原因。通过对比和分析，为中国恐怖电影的发展提供一些可行性的建议。

关键词： 恐怖电影；主题；角色；拍摄手法

1.    Introduction
“Dracula movie is a kind of gloomy atmosphere and scaring themes, usually contains some brutal events and aims at making audience frightened.” （Encyclopedia Britannica 1704） “Dracula movie is a kind of mystery stories and gloomy scenes to excite the audience’s sense and attract audience.”(Movie Art Dictionary 22) All these explanations are right and have their own reasonability. But if we want to give Dracula movie a very strict definition, it’s not an easy job. Since Dracula movie comes into being, its plots and form are always developing and changing and the standards given by audience are also changing. Some movies were regarded as Dracula movie in the past, but now they did not make the audience scared. Though we think it is Dracula movie, maybe in future we have another idea towards them. Besides, different people hold different opinions. An expression, a piece of plot, a scene or a scream may cause us frightened. Therefore, if we indeed want to define what Dracula movie is, we can use this broad standard---Dracula movie is a kind of movie which can make people feel scared in sense organs or mentality.
Director, Daniel Anthony, considers that Dracula movie usually reflects a kind of anxiety of culture. Different countries, different regions, different national cultures decide the plots of Dracula movie. It mirrors the culture and national mentality.Korean director Piao Jiheng considered that
Dracula movie has a close relation with history and society. Some of Dracula movie express the horrible memory of human history; some of them reflect the taboos of religion; some of them introspect the social morals; some of them embody threaten of realistic society; some also express worries towards the future.
In a word, the plots of Dracula movie depend on the historical background and real life. In this article, national Dracula movie and American Dracula movie will be compared.