Some stories are meant to be read by lamplight. Bram Stoker’s “Dracula,” it turns out, is best listened to in the dark.
Audible’s “Bram Stoker’s Dracula,” a new full-cast adaptation of the 1897 Gothic classic, was released last week and it is the best atmospheric listen I have ever experienced. The production runs for roughly six hours, yet time slipped by so quickly I was sad when I reached the final scene.
The Audible Original boasts a cast worthy of a feature film. Jonathan Bailey (“Wicked,” “Bridgerton”) voices Count Dracula, with Ella Purnell (“Fallout,” “Yellowjackets”) as Mina, Aimee Lou Wood (“The White Lotus”) as Lucy, and Louis Partridge (“Enola Holmes”) as Jonathan Harker. David Jonsson (“Industry”) plays Dr. Seward, Lesley Manville (“Phantom Thread”) is Mrs. Westenra, Johnny Flynn (“Ripley”) is Renfield, Francis Lovehall (“A Thousand Blows”) is Arthur, and Maggie Gyllenhaal (“The Dark Knight,” “Secretary”) takes on Professor Van Helsing.
Behind the microphone, Mary Lambert, director of the 1989 horror film “Pet Sematary,” makes her audiobook directing debut. Robyn Ahern, a recipient of the Bisha K. Ali Screenwriters Fellowship, adapted Stoker’s novel in her first lead writing credit. Composer Ilan Eshkeri, who scored Audible’s “1984,” wrote the original music. Despite the shared title, this is not a remake of Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 film. It returns directly to Stoker’s novel.
Stoker told his story through letters, diary entries, and newspaper clippings, a format that translates naturally to audio. By positioning Mina at the core of the story, this adaptation preserves the classic epistolary structure. She is the central figure who pieces things together after her fiancé’s disappearance in Transylvania, framing the narrative as a sharp battle of wits between her and the count.
Purnell gives Mina intelligence, warmth, and grit. In a behind-the-scenes video shared by People, she said Mina is “so motivated to take Dracula down and outsmart him,” and that resolve persists through every scene. I adored Mina.
And I loved Lucy just as much. Wood plays Lucy with a bright, playful charm that makes her slow surrender to Dracula’s thrall even more heartbreaking. Wood promised in the same video that “this version is going to be so immersive,” and she was right.
For local audiences, Lucy’s harrowing fate hits close to home, tying directly into South County’s history. Longstanding local lore links Stoker’s character to Mercy Brown, an Exeter youth who died at 19. Her body was exhumed in 1892, at the height of the New England vampire panic. Records of her case were allegedly discovered among Stoker’s files after his death. Mercy now lies in the cemetery behind Chestnut Hill Baptist Church on Route 102.
If Mercy’s story shows how the fear of the undead once gripped our corner of Rhode Island, the count himself demonstrates why. Jonathan Bailey is positively bewitching. His Dracula moves from courtly and seductive to disturbingly menacing in the space of a sentence. His voice slips into the listener’s soul like a growing shadow. When the production was first announced, Aurelie de Troyer, Audible’s head of international content, noted that hearing Dracula whisper in your ear or hearing his footsteps approach in the dark demonstrates just how perfectly tailored the story is for audio. Gyllenhaal summed up the experience in the People video. “I’m almost making a movie in my mind,” she said.
That brings me to the real star of this production: the sound. The effects and Eshkeri’s haunting score are the gilded curtains on this lavish castle. These elements, including bated breaths, slashing blades, and the chittering of rodents, establish the atmosphere, heighten tension, and bring each terrifying chapter to life in the listener’s mind. Crafted for complete immersion, the soundscape is also offered in Dolby Atmos.