Renton Civic’s “Dracula” will ensure patrons a good fright and a fair amount of gore.

“I didn’t want bright glittery vampires,” said director Alan Wilkie, referring the “Twilight” series. “I wanted Dracula to be a villain again.”

The Halloween show opens Friday and runs until Nov. 6.

It’s unusual for the Renton Civic Theatre to do a horror, but it’s fitting for the season, said artistic director Bill Huls.

The play is so bloody, the script came with a warning about how much stage blood was needed. For Renton, about three gallons, Wilkie said.

The costumes are borrowed, so the actors had to find a way to remove their jackets before the killings.

Buckets of bleach will be ready backstage for their white shirts, and the stage crew plans to mop during intermission.

The set is equally as dark, made to look like an old gothic castle and complete with rising coffin.

While the scenes start bright, they gradually darken throughout the play, pulling the audience in, Huls said.

This is the theater’s second play of the season.

The script closely follows Bram Stoker’s novel, which was published in the late 1800s.

It tells the story of a vampire who makes his way from his crumbling Transylvania castle to Victorian England to seduce and kill women.

“I can’t help but like it. It’s all sex and violence and revolves around me,” said Gianni Tuzzi, who plays Count Dracula.

The opening scene, an introduction from the character Renfield, played by Edwin Scheibner, finishes with the shocking scene of rat being eaten.

“There will definitely be a lot of surprises in it for the audience,” Tuzzi said.

There are four love interests throughout the play, with characters Mina and Lucy being the focus.

“Some of them (women) are just a snack,” said Laura Bannister, who plays Mina. “It also seems he’s looking for a particular woman to become his bride.”

Count Dracula is truly bad, Tuzzi said. “He operates on his own morality, which isn’t much.”

A theme in the play is how characters keeping secrets from each other prevents them from discovering the vampire.

The play would have been over in 10 minutes if the characters were honest with one another, Wilkie said.

“I’m excited to see how it’s going to come together,” Bannister said.