Bram Stoker’s Dracula

FROM GUEST PROGRAMMER DAVID LOWERY, THE DIRECTOR OF THE GREEN KNIGHT

Our Guest Selects series is an opportunity for filmmakers, writers, and performers to scratch their film programming itch, offering all of us a peek at the cinematic inspirations and influences behind their work, as well as pointing us towards movies they think are just damn great.

Time and availability permitting, we’ll even screen their selections at Alamo Drafthouse with a special introduction. That’s what we’re doing with BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA, a Guest Selects choice by David Lowery, the writer and director of this this summer’s new release from our pals at A24, THE GREEN KNIGHT. We spoke with David in July, and this is what he had to say about Francis Ford Coppola’s majestic horror masterwork.

BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, is a visual wonder, and is a horror film that is also a love letter to cinema and all of its many splendored possibilities.

The film is incredible on a visual level – the incredible production design by Thomas E. Sanders and the costume design by Eiko Ishioka are striking from the onset. But even more impressive are the techniques that Coppola used to tell the story. He really just used everything and the kitchen sink, and threw it all in a blender to make what I think is one of the most technically accomplished films of his entire career.

The movie opened when I was 11 years old and I was completely obsessed with it, even though my parents wouldn’t let me actually go see it. I didn’t see it for a number of years later, but by the time I actually saw it, I think I knew it by heart – it was already one of my favorite movies long before I actually laid eyes on it.