Special Thanks To Vram Stoker

On this Halloween, let us turn our attention to the end credits of Konami's original Castlevania for the Nintendo Entertainment System. Rather than credit the staff that worked on the game (either real names or pseudonyms), the credits list the supposed cast of the game itself as played by notable horror icons such as, er, Christopher Bee and Jone Candies. Mistranslation much? Probably not. Drew Mackie at Thrilling Tales of Old Video Games has dissected the Castlevania credits to explain who these parodic names are supposed to be. Slide two: “Screenplay by Vram Stoker / Music by James Banana.” Again,...

On this Halloween, let us turn our attention to the end credits of Konami's original Castlevania for the Nintendo Entertainment System.  Rather than credit the staff that worked on the game (either real names or pseudonyms), the credits list the supposed cast of the game itself as played by notable horror icons such as, er, Christopher Bee and Jone Candies.  Mistranslation much?  Probably not.  Drew Mackie at Thrilling Tales of Old Video Games has dissected the Castlevania credits to explain who these parodic names are supposed to be.

Slide two: “Screenplay by Vram Stoker / Music by James Banana.” Again, the first one is very obviously a nod to Bram Stoker, author of the novel Dracula, with a little of the [b]/[v] confusion I mentioned in my piece on Sypha’s name. Interestingly, the person who best fits the title of screenwriter for the first Castlevania is again Hitoshi Akamatsu, so I’m guessing the credits are all purely horror references and not stand-ins for actual people. 

James Banana is presumably a reference to James Bernard, Hammer Films composer and specifically the person who scored the 1958 Dracula. The music for the first Castlevania game was composed by Kinuyo Yamashita and Satoe Terashima. For whatever reason, the name has stuck to Yamashita specifically, even though it’s Terashima who wrote the iconic track “Vampire Killer.”

Those three NES Castlevania games use the tropes of classic horror movies starting on the title screens, so it's no surprise that the credits would complete the experience. Today's modern games include closing credits full of real names that scroll on and on and on, listing everyone who worked in programming, marketing, catering, international versions, people who drove by the studio one day, etc., and it's important to credit everyone who works on a game, but sometimes I think we've lost something by doing away with quick credits that go for a laugh (or at least, in Castlevania's case, a bemused "huh?").