Despite the dozens of vampire movies, television shows, comic books and novels that have followed it, Bram Stoker’s Dracula is easily more terrifying than its more contemporary vampire stories.

Telling the story of Jonathan Harker, an English solicitor who is called to provide legal support for a real estate transaction, the novel introduces the legendary character Count Dracula and his spooky, remote castle in Transylvania. As Harker learns that he has been taken prisoner in the castle, his fiancee Mina is troubled by her friend Lucy Westenra’s failing health.

After calling in famous Dr. Van Helsing, who suspects Lucy may have been bitten by a vampire, Lucy dies, is buried and then rises from her grave to prey on young children. Meanwhile, Jonathan escapes from Dracula’s castle, after witnessing the strange sleeping patterns of the monster, the blood-thirsty vampire women under the Count’s command and Dracula’s ability to scale vertical walls like a lizard.

Van Helsing and his assistant Seward find Lucy, behead her, drive a stake through her heart and fill her mouth with garlic, setting her soul free. Dracula kidnaps and feeds off of Mina’s blood as an act of revenge. Van Helsing, Seward and Jonathan venture to the dark castle in Transylvania to rescue Mina and kill the undead Count Dracula.