Inspired by this thread here hammer-dracula-timeline-t20885.html I got the idea to try to work out how every Dracula film ever made could work as one cohesive continuity. It actually wasn’t all that hard to do. I’ve made a couple controversial choices I am sure. Scars of Dracula is now a prequel to the rest of the series and Taste the Blood of Dracula comes far later in the timeline than most would probably expect. But I have thought carefully about all of this and I think it actually makes the series even more interesting to think about. Taking a little inspiration from Castlevania, the Hammer Dracula series with this retroactive timeline is fight between Dracula and Van Helsing through the ages:
- 1800 to 1803: Dracula meets and befriends a scientist named Abraham Van Helsing. Not being nearly as bloodthirsty at this point, they get along well. Abraham becomes fascinated with Dracula’s abilities and is invited to study at Castle Dracula. He brings with him his wife whom Dracula very quickly begins to lust after. During a fight that breaks out between them, Van Helsing’s wife ends up being killed. The scientist vows to devote his life to learning all the ways to defeat his mortal enemy. He remarries and has his first son, Lawrence. For his part, Dracula curses the Van Helsing family resulting in their battle with the Count throughout history. Van Helsing learns a bit of magic himself, particularly a spell that he uses to bind Dracula to his castle and keep him from leaving its walls.
- 1804: The prologue of The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires takes place. Dracula possesses the monk Kah’s body, a kind of possession that completely devours the monk’s soul. Using this other body Dracula is able to leave the threshold of his castle and can once again roam the Earth as he pleases. Kah, after being possessed by Dracula becomes just one of the faces he can choose to assume. The main face we see Dracula take on from this point being the face of an Italian Duke that had once insulted him. After killing the Duke and assuming his image, Dracula began to prefer that face as the Duke had been famed for his looks and it served Dracula in luring unsuspecting women to their demise.
- 1839: Abraham has a second son named John.
- 1860: An elderly Abraham Van Helsing learns of Dracula’s escape from his spell and returns to the castle to end his old friend’s life once and for all. Unfortunately, Dracula had already planned for this possibility and had his bat familiar hold his blood in its mouth. When Van Helsing left the castle assuming his work was done, the bat returned to the castle and facilitated the resurrection of Dracula. Abraham falls ill and dies not knowing of his failure.
- 1862 The events of Scars of Dracula, after the prologue, take place. Dracula’s servant Klove dies.
- 1872: Lawrence Van Helsing, and younger brother John Van Helsing both are scientists that specialize in the occult and were trained by their father in all the ways he knew of to kill vampires. Lawrence tracks down a revived Count Dracula, kills him but dies himself in the process. He leaves behind a son, Lawrence II, and his vengeful brother John. Lord Alucard who is a zealous devotee of Dracula’s (to the point of changing his surname from Courtley to the inverse of his dark messiah) collects Dracula’s ashes and deposits them in the soil of the church where Van Helsing is buried, planning for the heir of the Alucard bloodline to resurrect Dracula a century later. Sometime just before his demise, Dracula had also happened upon a wild orphan boy that had been killing travelers and eating them. Dracula offered the boy his home and made him the caretaker of his castle, naming him Klove in a sick bit of humor referencing his dead minion. Klove maintains the castle anytime his master is absent.
- 1885: John Van Helsing spends the next 13 years studying vampires and preparing himself for the potential return of the creature that killed his brother. John’s apprentice and now partner in the study of vampirism, Jonathan Harker, learns of Dracula’s return. Having heard John’s stories about the evils of Dracula, Jonathan becomes convinced that the Count must meet a swift end. John on the other hand implores him to be patient and help him come up with a plan to attack the vampire together. Instead, Harker foolishly decides to go after Dracula himself, without telling John, which leads to the events of the 1958 film. John’s nephew Lawrence II is studying abroad at this point.
- 1886: The events of Brides of Dracula take place. Afterwards, John who had up to this point been protecting his nephew and keeping him ignorant of vampires, lets Lawrence Jr. in on the family secrets.
- 1895: The events of Prince of Darkness takes place. The second Klove enacts a plan concocted by Dracula sometime before 1885 as a backup in the event he should be killed again.
- 1896: The events of Dracula has Risen from the Grave take place.
- 1897: Lawrence Van Helsing II and his uncle John learn of Dracula’s recent deaths and resurrections. Together they both set out to kill the Count again and they do succeed, but at the cost of John’s life. Lawrence Jr. carries on the legacy of his family but now having been forever scared by not being able to save his uncle’s life.
- 1904: Lawrence Van Helsing II is a professor in China. The events of The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires take place. Lawrence Jr. retires from hunting and studying vampires after this, leaving his son Leyland to take over.
- 1906: The events of Taste the Blood of Dracula take place. The Alucard family are still in hiding waiting for the time when they will resurrect Dracula and eliminate the Van Helsing bloodline. At this point they have changed their surname back to Courtley for time being and have been using black magic to amass a fortune. The young Lord Courtley obsessed with the power of Dracula sought to resurrect him for his own selfish purposes and was therefore disowned and disinherited from the family. To outsiders, only his practice of black mass was publicly known. Undeterred, he planned to resurrect Dracula in a modified ritual that would allow him to retain consciousness within Dracula’s body. It was partially successful but Dracula’s consciousness was still the dominant one. Courtley was merely able to subtly influence Dracula to enact revenge on his conspirators in the ritual. Dracula’s death in this film was the end of any influence Courtley had on Dracula from that point onwards.
- 1913: Leyland Van Helsing, son of Lawrence II, has a son of his own named Lorrimer.
- 1972: The events of AD 1972 take place. Johnny Alucard is the one that finally enacts the century old plan to resurrect Dracula and get revenge on the Van Helsing bloodline. The original plan was to use Jessica Van Helsing’s blood in the resurrection which would have made it so only a Van Helsing would be capable of killing him, meaning that any normal means of dispatching the Count would no longer work if done by anyone else. If they had managed this and eliminated the Van Helsing line, he would reach true immortality.
- 1974: Sometime between the previous film and Satanic Rites, Dracula is resurrected by a death cult. However, after centuries of death and resurrection he’s grown tired of this cycle. Driven mad with a desire to fully die and stay dead forever he devises a plane eliminate all human life so he can attain some kind of peace. Lorrimer Van Helsing tricks Dracula into a hawthorn bush, incidentally being an obscure method of killing vampires but one that keeps them from ever resurrecting. Lorrimer end ups being the last of his bloodline that ever faces Dracula again .
- 1800 to 1803: Dracula meets and befriends a scientist named Abraham Van Helsing. Not being nearly as bloodthirsty at this point, they get along well. Abraham becomes fascinated with Dracula’s abilities and is invited to study at Castle Dracula. He brings with him his wife whom Dracula very quickly begins to lust after. During a fight that breaks out between them, Van Helsing’s wife ends up being killed. The scientist vows to devote his life to learning all the ways to defeat his mortal enemy. He remarries and has his first son, Lawrence. For his part, Dracula curses the Van Helsing family resulting in their battle with the Count throughout history. Van Helsing learns a bit of magic himself, particularly a spell that he uses to bind Dracula to his castle and keep him from leaving its walls.
- 1804: The prologue of The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires takes place. Dracula possesses the monk Kah’s body, a kind of possession that completely devours the monk’s soul. Using this other body Dracula is able to leave the threshold of his castle and can once again roam the Earth as he pleases. Kah, after being possessed by Dracula becomes just one of the faces he can choose to assume. The main face we see Dracula take on from this point being the face of an Italian Duke that had once insulted him. After killing the Duke and assuming his image, Dracula began to prefer that face as the Duke had been famed for his looks and it served Dracula in luring unsuspecting women to their demise.
- 1839: Abraham has a second son named John.
- 1860: An elderly Abraham Van Helsing learns of Dracula’s escape from his spell and returns to the castle to end his old friend’s life once and for all. Unfortunately, Dracula had already planned for this possibility and had his bat familiar hold his blood in its mouth. When Van Helsing left the castle assuming his work was done, the bat returned to the castle and facilitated the resurrection of Dracula. Abraham falls ill and dies not knowing of his failure.
- 1862 The events of Scars of Dracula, after the prologue, take place. Dracula’s servant Klove dies.
- 1872: Lawrence Van Helsing, and younger brother John Van Helsing both are scientists that specialize in the occult and were trained by their father in all the ways he knew of to kill vampires. Lawrence tracks down a revived Count Dracula, kills him but dies himself in the process. He leaves behind a son, Lawrence II, and his vengeful brother John. Lord Alucard who is a zealous devotee of Dracula’s (to the point of changing his surname from Courtley to the inverse of his dark messiah) collects Dracula’s ashes and deposits them in the soil of the church where Van Helsing is buried, planning for the heir of the Alucard bloodline to resurrect Dracula a century later. Sometime just before his demise, Dracula had also happened upon a wild orphan boy that had been killing travelers and eating them. Dracula offered the boy his home and made him the caretaker of his castle, naming him Klove in a sick bit of humor referencing his dead minion. Klove maintains the castle anytime his master is absent.
- 1885: John Van Helsing spends the next 13 years studying vampires and preparing himself for the potential return of the creature that killed his brother. John’s apprentice and now partner in the study of vampirism, Jonathan Harker, learns of Dracula’s return. Having heard John’s stories about the evils of Dracula, Jonathan becomes convinced that the Count must meet a swift end. John on the other hand implores him to be patient and help him come up with a plan to attack the vampire together. Instead, Harker foolishly decides to go after Dracula himself, without telling John, which leads to the events of the 1958 film. John’s nephew Lawrence II is studying abroad at this point.
- 1886: The events of Brides of Dracula take place. Afterwards, John who had up to this point been protecting his nephew and keeping him ignorant of vampires, lets Lawrence Jr. in on the family secrets.
- 1895: The events of Prince of Darkness takes place. The second Klove enacts a plan concocted by Dracula sometime before 1885 as a backup in the event he should be killed again.
- 1896: The events of Dracula has Risen from the Grave take place.
- 1897: Lawrence Van Helsing II and his uncle John learn of Dracula’s recent deaths and resurrections. Together they both set out to kill the Count again and they do succeed, but at the cost of John’s life. Lawrence Jr. carries on the legacy of his family but now having been forever scared by not being able to save his uncle’s life.
- 1904: Lawrence Van Helsing II is a professor in China. The events of The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires take place. Lawrence Jr. retires from hunting and studying vampires after this, leaving his son Leyland to take over.
- 1906: The events of Taste the Blood of Dracula take place. The Alucard family are still in hiding waiting for the time when they will resurrect Dracula and eliminate the Van Helsing bloodline. At this point they have changed their surname back to Courtley for time being and have been using black magic to amass a fortune. The young Lord Courtley obsessed with the power of Dracula sought to resurrect him for his own selfish purposes and was therefore disowned and disinherited from the family. To outsiders, only his practice of black mass was publicly known. Undeterred, he planned to resurrect Dracula in a modified ritual that would allow him to retain consciousness within Dracula’s body. It was partially successful but Dracula’s consciousness was still the dominant one. Courtley was merely able to subtly influence Dracula to enact revenge on his conspirators in the ritual. Dracula’s death in this film was the end of any influence Courtley had on Dracula from that point onwards.
- 1913: Leyland Van Helsing, son of Lawrence II, has a son of his own named Lorrimer.
- 1972: The events of AD 1972 take place. Johnny Alucard is the one that finally enacts the century old plan to resurrect Dracula and get revenge on the Van Helsing bloodline. The original plan was to use Jessica Van Helsing’s blood in the resurrection which would have made it so only a Van Helsing would be capable of killing him, meaning that any normal means of dispatching the Count would no longer work if done by anyone else. If they had managed this and eliminated the Van Helsing line, he would reach true immortality.
- 1974: Sometime between the previous film and Satanic Rites, Dracula is resurrected by a death cult. However, after centuries of death and resurrection he’s grown tired of this cycle. Driven mad with a desire to fully die and stay dead forever he devises a plane eliminate all human life so he can attain some kind of peace. Lorrimer Van Helsing tricks Dracula into a hawthorn bush, incidentally being an obscure method of killing vampires but one that keeps them from ever resurrecting. Lorrimer end ups being the last of his bloodline that ever faces Dracula again .
statistics: Posted by Aryn93 — 11:09 PM - Sep 30 — Replies 2 — Views 88