At a ballroom of a hospital charity party in
Budapest, the successful
American lawyer Jonathan Harker suddenly proposes to his girlfriend Mina. He wants to marry her within the week. Their friends Lucy, Quincy, and Arthur have been invited by Jonathan and have just arrived for the wedding, all without Mina's awareness. Meanwhile, they meet the party's promoter, the psychiatrist Dr. Seward. Later in the same night, Jonathan is called by a rich client, Tepes, who hires him to prepare the inventory of his uncle's wealth, the count Vladislav Tepes, in
Romania. In his
Porsche, Jonathan travels to the
Carpathian Mountains, has an accident, and finally arrives in the count's old
castle. Vlad Tepes, here calling himself Count Vladislav Tepes, decides to leave his castle and move to the west. He says he feels tired from Romania's decline and the seclusion of his life. In Budapest, he discusses some illegal business with Harker. He also wants Jonathan's help to turn his collection of paintings, jewels, and gold deposits into cash. Jonathan's friends, businessman Quincey Morris, specialising in money swindles, and Arthur Holmwood, a British diplomat in debt, offer to help. Though Jonathan and Arthur doubt the deal, Quincey convinces them that money is all that matters, and it is one true power that makes the world go around. Dracula gets very interested in those young people—the men, hungry for money and power; Lucy, who wants to sleep in many beds, in many cities, have new experiences and live forever; and Mina, who wants to change the world and end human suffering. Throughout the film, Dracula tries to seduce all five of them into his own world, making them wish to become vampires. Focusing again and again on how hypocritical morality is and promising them the loss of their consciences, he says survival of the fittest is the proper way, and even the strong cannot save the weak. He also references God's slaughters in the Bible to prove that humanity was created in his image, the image of a killer. There to stop him is the researcher of the occult and Seward's teacher Dr. Enrico Valenzi, who believes that Dracula can be defeated when he faces a strong will empowered by faith. But throughout this film, he raises more and more self-doubts, and his will almost breaks by the end. Mina, halfway through her transformation to a vampire, manages to make Dracula trust her and kills him as he holds her in an embrace. The film ends with Mina still having the vampire's mark, leaving her fate untold, though it could be that she instead took her own life to prevent herself from succumbing to vampirism entirely. ==Cast==