In 1850, Jonathan Harker is an estate agent in Wismar, Germany. His employer, Renfield, informs him that nobleman Count Dracula wishes to buy a property in Wismar. Harker is assigned to visit the Count and complete the deal. Leaving his wife Lucy behind, Harker travels to Dracula's castle in Transylvania, in a journey that lasts four weeks, carrying with him the documents needed to sell the house. En route, Harker stops at an inn, where the locals beg for him to stay away from the accursed castle, providing him with details of Dracula's vampirism. Ignoring the villagers' pleas as superstition, Harker continues his journey, ascending the Borgo Pass on foot and arriving at the castle, where he meets Dracula, a man with large ears, pale skin, sharp teeth and long fingernails.
The Count is enchanted by a small portrait of Lucy and agrees to purchase the Wismar property, especially with the knowledge that she would become his neighbor. As Jonathan's visit progresses, he is haunted at night by several encounters with Dracula. In Wismar, Lucy is tormented by nightmares, plagued by images of impending doom. Meanwhile, Renfield is committed to an asylum after biting a cow, apparently having gone insane. To Harker's horror, he finds the Count asleep in a coffin, confirming for him that Dracula is indeed a vampire. That night, Dracula leaves for Wismar, taking coffins filled with the cursed earth that he needs for his vampiric rest. Harker finds himself imprisoned in the castle and attempts to escape through a window via a makeshift rope fashioned from bedsheets. The rope is not long enough, and Jonathan falls, severely injuring himself.
The next morning, he awakes on the ground, stirred by the sound of a young Romani boy playing the violin. Eventually sent to a hospital, Jonathan raves about 'black coffins' to doctors, who assume that the illness affects his mind.
Dracula and his coffins travel to Wismar by ship via the Black Sea port of Varna, thence through the Bosphorus and the Strait of Gibraltar and around the west European Atlantic coast to the Baltic Sea. He kills the ship's crew, making it appear as if they were afflicted with the plague.
The ghost ship arrives at Wismar, where doctors – including Abraham Van Helsing – investigate the fate of the vessel. They discover a ship's log that mentions their perceived affliction with the plague. Wismar is then flooded with rats from the ship. When Dracula arrives with his coffins, death spreads throughout the town. The ill Jonathan is transported home but does not appear to recognize Lucy when he finally arrives and says the sunlight is hurting him. She later encounters Dracula. Weary and unable to die, he demands some of the love that she gives to Jonathan, to no avail.
Now aware that something other than plague is responsible for the death that has beset Wismar, Lucy tries to convince the townspeople, who are skeptical and uninterested, engaging in a danse macabre and having a last supper. From a book given to Jonathan by the Transylvanians, Lucy discovers she can defeat Dracula by distracting him until dawn, at which time the rays of the sun will destroy him, but only at the cost of her own life. Jonathan becomes more sick as his memory worsens and his skin turns pale. That night, Lucy puts a ring of salt around Jonathan and lures Dracula to her bedroom, where he drinks her blood.
Lucy distracts Dracula from the call of the rooster, and at the first light of day, he dies. Van Helsing arrives to discover Lucy dead but victorious. He then drives a stake through the heart of Dracula to make sure that Lucy's sacrifice was not in vain. Jonathan then awakens from his sickness, now a vampire, and has Van Helsing arrested for Dracula's murder. Jonathan then states that he has much to do and rides away on horseback, garbed in the same fluttering black as Dracula.
