Masterarbeit / Vampirism in Gothic film parody: From Tod Browning's 'Dracula' to Mel Brooks' 'Dracula: Dead and Loving It'

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Chapter: 3.1.3 COMPARISON: SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES
Tod Browning's Dracula and Mel Brooks' Dracula: Dead and Loving It conspicuously show clear parallels plot-wise. Insofar, going back to both Grellmann's (630) and Korkut's (14) definition of parody, Brooks' Gothic film parody intentionally imitates Browning's Gothic film by, if you will, conserving the formal elements. In this case, however, the initial translation of the Greek word parody as beside-or-against song (Verweyen and Witting 4ff.; Rose, "Parodie" 5; Chambers 3) applies insofar as, on the one hand, the plot is mirrored, but humorously intended, thus unfolding as "beside song", and, on the other hand, includes, scenes such as the ballroom scene (see Appendix fig. 60) or the passing away and the bloody staking of Lucy Westenra (see Appendix fig. 82), which are not displayed in Browning's plot, hence appear as "against song".
The latter scene, however, proofs that Brooks' Gothic film parody is "structurally quite true to the familiar story" (Joslin 133) - Stoker depicts Lucy's staking, here taken not by Jonathan, but by Arthur, as follows: "[...] driving deeper and deeper the mercy-bearing stake, whilst the blood from the pierced heart welled and spurted up around it." (Stoker 201). Insofar, the "beside song" elements in Brooks's Gothic film parody unfold within an intermedial connection to literature. Lyndon W. Joslin goes even so far to claim that Dracula: Dead and Loving It is "more faithful to the novel than the 1931 version it spoofs" (132). With regard to the plot, this is even a matter of fact, so that between Gothic film parody and novel, one encounters a dominant use of "beside song" elements than between Gothic film parody and Gothic film. According to Dan Harries' parodic methods, therefore, on the level of syntax, Brook's and Stoker's narrative unfolding contains several reiterations such as the ship's name, the Demeter; the use of garlic; the character names; the passing