I like Dracula because it's a rip-roaring story. And there is some effort at showing how really quite distasteful on a visceral level Dracula is; Stoker makes him inhuman because he's doing what humans aren't supposed to - eat other people.

I know you're right about the whole ultimate alpha hero thing, but I always come back to wanting to say to the heroine "you know you're in love with a serial killer, right? Odds are not in your favour, lady."