Inspirations: The Vampires of Venice

The big clue is in the title...

Fans of Hammer Horror will have spotted one of the main inspirations for this story - especially the 1960 film The Brides of Dracula. This stars Peter Cushing as Van Helsing but - despite the title - Dracula doesn't actually feature. Instead, the vampire hunter is up against one of the Count's disciples - Baron Meinster - who targets a girls' school. 

One of the heroine's friends, played by Hancock's Half Hour's Andree Melly, is vampirised, and she emerges from her coffin in what looks like a white night dress. There are a number of female vampires across the Hammer range who dress similarly, though they are supposed to be in their shrouds. Skimpy night dresses are obviously sexier. (Hammer turned to sex  towards the end, to spice up their flagging horror films, which included the lesbian-focussed Karnstein trilogy, the second of which also revolved around a girls' school).

The girls in this story are being set up to be brides of vampiric creatures.

The Vampires of Venice just happens to also be centred around a girls' school - and the pupils who have been transformed tend to wander about in their white night dresses.

In the same way that most werewolf lore derives from The Wolfman (Universal 1941), so much vampire lore derives from Bram Stoker and the Universal & Hammer movies.

We have the extreme light-sensitivity, an apparent ability to fly, fangs, and failure to cast a reflection. An aversion to running water is naturally omitted.

Another horror film trapping is the sight of the failed "brides" lying in their coffins.

A draft script had Francesco climbing up the wall of a building, as Dracula does in the novel (but which Christopher Lee didn't get round to doing until Scars of Dracula, 1970).

We should also bear in mind that the writer, Toby Whithouse, was the creator and lead writer on Being Human - the darkly comedic drama about a vampire / werewolf / ghost flat-share.

Google this episode and you might have also come across a horror movie starring Klaus Kinski, reprising Graf Orlok in a sequel to Werner Herzog's Nosferatu remake. Released in 1988, it is titled Vampire In Venice.

The story is also designed to reintroduce Rory and bring him aboard the TARDIS as a full-time companion - setting him for major plot developments later on.

It has already been established that Amy has run away with the Doctor on the eve of her wedding, so here we see him attending his stag party.

Venice is regarded as one of the most romantic cities in the world (moonlit gondola rides, etc.) so this helped determine the location of the story - the Doctor is determined to keep the couple together.

The fact that Series 5 is partly being filmed in Croatia - just across the Adriatic from Italy - is another inspiration. Trogir has similar architecture to Venice.

Since the series returned in 2005 one of the taboos has been the depiction of blood on screen. Characters can meet the grisliest of fates, but you can't show the red stuff.

A bit of a problem in an episode about vampires...

The way round it is to substitute nice safe water, and the location agrees with this - Venice being built on a lagoon and famous for its canals.

The threat of the city sinking at the conclusion derives from the genuine issues Venice faces.

Next time: the Doctor encounters his very own Monster from the Id. Rory dies, but not for the last time...