Last night my family was watching Van Helsing on Netflix. The movie involves good and evil; Count Dracula and Dr. Frankenstein versus Van Helsing, a dedicated woman and her family and all that is hopeful and good in the world. I need to say that I am not particularly a vampire monster movie fan. However, this was a very mild and not dark like so many other movies involving vampires and monsters.
What was particularly interesting to me was that in the basic plot, one of the messages of the story is that only from life can you get life. Dracula was trying to bring his progeny into the world and was unable to do it because he and all around him is or was dead. He discovers that Dr. Frankenstein has developed a way to restore life and Dracula tries to incorporate that technology into his agenda of bring his “dead” children to life. However, his children were never alive. The idea above did not specifically strike below the surface of my consciousness until I read this morning a similar concept which I found enjoyably coincidental. In the 24-hour a day book, published by Hazelton, part of the medication for the day included the idea:
Do you want to make the best of life? Then live as near as possible to God, the Master and Giver of all life.
The parallel is that there was part of the Frankenstein monster that was the source of his life and that was depicted as his “heart” in a technological sense. It was that part of the Frankenstein monster that Dr. Frankenstein had given him which led to the success of reanimating the monster. In addition the Frankenstein monsters is depicted as loving, compassionate, “full of life” like a child who came from the love of his creator. It was this element represented by the electrical/device “heart” that Dracula lacked and which was essential if his children were ever to live. Dracula at one point boldly professes that he has no love, no heart, no compassion and no feelings.
Of course, I may be reading into the movie what I want, but for today, I will take that thought into my day do my best to align my actions and thoughts with “life” in all of its varied forms.
