The vampire has carved its own path in both literary canon and popular culture alike; however vampires such as Le Fanu’s Carmilla did not manage to achieve the popularity which is bestowed upon Stoker’s creation, Count Dracula. He is inarguably the most well known vampire in the world. It is thus not farfetched to argue that much of the vampire fiction created after the publication of Stoker’s novel uses the Count as the basis of the vampire in their own narratives. The vampire genre has been revitalized lately by the creation of such hit television shows such as "True Blood" (2008) or "The Vampire Diaries" (2009), but also films such as "Twilight" (2008), therefore I have decided to take a look at the vampire character featured in Stoker’s novel, identify the characteristics and values it represents such as its relation to religion or sexuality and to compare my findings to several vampire films that were created in the last two decades. The purpose of this was to solidify the position that Dracula can be considered a "prototypical" vampire, to identify how the characteristics and values he represents are used and reshaped in modern works to represent modern day issues, ideas and values and how the vampire genre is the perfect medium to discuss them.