For the 1960 Hammer film, see The Brides of Dracula The Brides of Dracula appear in Bram Stoker's novel Dracula as three seductive female vampires. They are not married to Dracula but inhabit his castle in Transylvania and he provides them with victims to feed upon, mainly infants and children. Like Dracula, they are shapeshifters and immortals and negatively affected by religious objects. Jonathan Harker and Abraham Van Helsing are both attracted and repulsed by them. Harker yields to their seduction but is saved by Dracula and later manages to escape the castle. Van Helsing overcomes his initial attraction and kills the three vampires. The novel (chapter 3) describes two as dark haired and one as blonde though in some film adaptations one is red-headed, one is blonde, and one is brunette.
In film
Although missing from the silent Nosferatu, the Brides made silent appearances in the 1931 film Dracula and the Spanish language Drácula made the same year. Likewise the three brides were present but silent in the Jack Palance television adaptation. They had lines in the 1977 BBC production entitled Count Dracula. Commonly all three brides appear, though some adaptations (such as the 1995 Dracula: Dead and Loving It) show less than three. They are usually depicted in flowing nightgowns and act in a sexually aggressive manner. In the 1992 film Bram Stoker's Dracula by Francis Ford Coppola the brides (played by Monica Bellucci, Michaela Bercu and Florina Kendrick) conversed with their master in Romanian. While the Brides usually remain nameless, they are called Marishka, Aleera, and Verona (played by actresses Josie Maran, Elena Anaya and Silvia Colloca, respectively) in the 2004 film Van Helsing. The concept was also present in the 1987 horror comedy The Monster Squad, where Dracula has abducted three teenage girls and turns them into his vampire brides. In Dracula 2000 the Brides are composed of Dracula's victims Solina, Valarie Sharpe, and Lucy Westerman. Each bride is destroyed in the end.
