Throughout the history of cinema, many filmmakers have attempted to recreate the frightening and unprecedented world of Bram Stoker's Dracula. Very few have arguably succeeded, as the majority of directors tend to avoid the pervasive sexuality inherent in the novel. This is a difficult task to achieve, given the blatant imagery surrounding sex and vampirism, such as reproduction following a vampiric encounter, and the phallocentric nature of the violence committed by and against these creatures: penetration participates of their hunt, and they must be impaled with a stake in order to destroy them. Readers are thus forced to admit that Dracula is, in fact, a highly eroticized work of literature, although we cannot be sure whether or not Stoker himself is aware of this suggestiveness. The most successful effort to capture this sexual energy on film was Francis Ford Coppola's 1992 film, Bram Stoker's Dracula. In fact, it has often been suggested that Coppola's version is too carnal compared to the original work, leading the viewer to question the purpose of this overt sexualization. It can be concluded that the addition of large amounts of eroticism to the film is directly related to Coppola's desire to portray Count Dracula as more human than monster, and the sexuality in his film serves as a balance so that the boundaries between good and evil are blurred. Evidence of this deduction can be found in three scenes in particular: Jonathan's seduction by Dracula's vampiric brides, Lucy's demonic transformation, and the relationship between Mina and Van Helsing at the story's climax. It has long been said that the most explicit scene in Coppola's film occurs right at the beginning of the plot during Jonathan Harker's imprisonment in Dracula's castle. Bram Stoker's original work also managed to render this incident highly eroticized, with words and phrases such as "voluptuousness" and "wicked, burning desire"; these descriptions, coupled with the actions featuring the vampires "licking [their] lips like animals", create an aura of unmistakable sensuality around the scene (Stoker 42-43). For Victorian writing, this is almost obscenely sexualized writing, as highlighted by the way Stoker incorporates the word voluptuous no fewer than three times in this scene, which was a common term associated with carnality in literature from this time. There is a certain erotic anticipation associated with Jonathan's involuntary reaction to the inevitable, which hints at a latent sensuality..