Dracula has been a part of my life from the very beginning. I was four years old when Bela Lugosi introduced me to not only the titular vampire, but horror, in general. I don’t remember much from that age, but the image of Lugosi holding a candelabra, standing on the web-covered stairs has been seared in my head. But it was a short time later with Christopher Lee’s red-eyed and blood-fanged ghoulish turn in Horror of Dracula that cemented my love of vampires. More so than Lugosi, Lee’s piercing and intense performance is my quintessential idea of Bram Stoker’s villain.

The legend of Dracula didn’t stop there. It continued through Francis Ford Coppola’s magnificent Bram Stoker’s Dracula to Leslie Nielsen’s (in my opinion criminally overlooked) performance in Dracula: Dead and Loving It to the year 2000 and 3000 and beyond. His story has been Unleashed and Reborn; his past Untold.

My point is, by 2020, we’ve seen almost every permeation of his story imaginable. He’s been romanticized. Lampooned. Championed. Demonized. Fetishized. Is there anything new to explore with the character? That’s the question at the heart of Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss (Sherlock, Doctor Who)’s latest adaptation of Bram Stoker’s classic. The answer?

Not really, but man is it mostly a fun and campy (if slightly bloated) ode to Count De Ville himself.

This particular retelling begins in Hungary 1897 as an emaciated Jonathan Harker (John Heffernan) shuffles around an almost cell-like room in an abbey. He’s emaciated. Hollowed out. Lesions and cracked skin cake his pale, bald head. He’s obviously seen better days. Before long, a nun named Sister Agatha (Dolly Wells) enters the room, carrying a manuscript furiously written by Harker and filled with questions. A single word is inscribed on the cover:

Dracula.

The narrative is structured as an interview between Sister Agatha and Harker, taking her through his first meeting with Dracula (Claes Bang) to his imprisonment at Castle Dracula and beyond. At first, Harker’s yarn feels like a Greatest Hits Tour of every Dracula tale. It starts with a carriage ride that drops Harker off in on a frozen mountain path because the driver will go no further. A stereotypical gypsy woman (who looks like she just stepped off of Mel Brooks’ set) hands him a cross. Harker refuses. “You must!” she implores. “You need this!” It’s so on the nose, I almost expected her to say, “Dammit! Take the cross!”…and then ask for 15 kopeks.

The comparisons don’t stop there, though. We get Dracula saying, “I do not drink...wine” to Jonathan cutting his finger and triggering Dracula’s appetite and beyond. All very familiar, with a tone that’s hard to nail down.

On one hand, Dracula channels the Gothic horror and atmosphere popularized by the Hammer Films of the 50s and 60s, complete with mist and bats and the lavishly creepy Castle Dracula. In fact, one particular close-up on Dracula in full vampire mode is a direct homage to Christopher Lee’s wonderful performance. But Claes Bang plays Dracula with an air of camp, his tongue firmly planted in cheek, and the dialogue is punny and full of jokes. When Jonathan yells, “You’re a monster!” Claes’s Dracula drolly responds, “And you’re a lawyer. Nobody’s perfect.”

In some ways, this first episode (entitled “The Rules of the Beast”) feels created solely to disarm us with its familiarity. In the same way the characters are surprised at the mix of reality and myth that govern vampires, the narrative seeks to undermine our expectations. Unfortunately, the first half feels bloated and, at times, languid as it goes through the motions of the familiar prologue. It’s only in the last half of the first episode that Moffat and Gatiss pulls the rug out, paving the way for a third act that truly veers from the source material in fascinating and sometimes subversive ways.

Dracula truly comes alive when it’s finally allowed to unburden itself from the novel and twist characters and tropes. Sister Agatha, whose sole purpose in Stoker’s novel is to send letters to Mina, updating her on Harker’s recovery, is given a much larger and meatier role here. She’s a dichotomy; a nun focused not on earthly matters and not the afterlife who says things like “God doesn’t care,” and point blank asks Harker if he had sex with Dracula.

The gore, while mostly restrained, is potent and appropriately gooey. I particularly enjoyed the dips into body horror and the way it focused on Jonathan’s withering body. Likewise, the creature effects are gnarly and used in surprising and gleeful ways. But even when it does go full horror, it feels oddly restrained. A couple moments truly thrilled, particularly a moment deep in the bowels of Castle Dracula. But Claes’s Dracula is so smarmy and sensual that when he’s forced to go full monster, it still feels more gleeful than horrific.

Not everyone is going to like the wildly divergent tones. Dracula purists will absolutely hate the big swings the narrative takes and the anachronistic air of modern humor and progressiveness. I guess what I’m saying is, it’s a typical Moffat and Gatiss production. In the same way the duo modernized Sherlock, Dracula is both completely familiar and distinct enough that I’m personally curious to see where their story goes from here.