The sailing ship carrying Count Dracula's possessions to Yorkshire perishes in a storm and a bloody frenzy of vampirism. The Count is the only survivor, washed up on the beach and found by instantly besotted Mina Van Helsing, kin and roommate of the Count's new English lawyer Jonathan Harker's fiancee Lucy Seward, daughter of the local doctor Jack Seward, who manages a local asylum. The Count takes up residence in grand, semi-ruined Carfax Abbey, terrorizing his servant, and begins transforming in a bat and drinking blood, dooming his undead victims. The Count also acts as host and guest, hypnotizes Lucy, proves a hard adversary for Mina's Dutch father, Professor Abraham Van Helsing, who arrives for her funeral but also reads up on occult vampirism, then enlists Jonathan and Jack to wield crosses and garlic, even in the old mine tunnels accessed from the cemetery and ultimately back to sea.—KGF Vissers