Comparing Dracula and The Lost Boys

How the vampire film changed between 1931 and 1987: from an aristocratic foreigner in a Gothic castle to a gang of teenage vampires in a Californian town.
Genre conventions compared: settings, props such as crosses and stakes, the expert figure, and horror mixed with comedy and the teen film in 1987.
Narrative compared: the disruption, villains and helpers, and how each film ends.
Contexts compared: a Depression-era studio film from the start of sound against a 1980s film for a youth audience, and what each could show on screen.
Representation compared: gender, age and the family in each film.
Kept to what the comparison question rewards: points of comparison in genre, narrative, context and representation, each linking an era's context to a specific choice in that film; film form appears only as brief support for a comparison, since each film's form has a lesson of its own.
A plan and model paragraphs for the 20-mark comparison question, with both films given equal weight.
Worked answers with their marks, and practice questions to try, each headed 'Practice question' with its marks.
Quote only short lines of dialogue you're sure of, a few words at a time, and base every point on what happens in the finished film.

What you need to know