Happy 93rd Birthday, Christopher Lee!

Christopher Lee as Lord Summerisle in "The Wicker Man" (1973).

Born May 27th, 1922. Can you believe it?

Once almost irreconcilably typecast as the vampire Count Dracula, Sir Christopher Lee's career has crossed multiple genres and spanned seven decades. With over 280 acting credits to his name, he is more than established as one of the world's greatest and most well known fantasy actors.

Thank you, Sir Christopher, for givng us a lifetime of entertainment. Many happy returns!

And let us never forget his fellow horror icons, Vincent Price (May 27th, 1911 – October 25th, 1993) and Peter Cushing (May 26th, 1913 – August 11th, 1994). Happy birthday and may they rest in peace.

Christopher Lee with Vincent Price and Peter Cushing
in "House of the Long Shadows" (1983).

It's also Hart Fisher's birthday, the owner of American Horrors. Happy birthday, Hart!

AMERICAN HORRORS is the new uncut horror TV channel owned and hosted by legendary horror creator, Hart D. Fisher. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, you can watch for free on your ipod, ipad, iphone, or Android by downloading the FilmOn App!!!

Dracula 3D (2012)

I've been in two minds about writing anything about Dario Argento's "Dracula 3D" not because I'm a known hater of everything Dario Argento has ever produced apart from "Mother of Tears" (and Asia) but because everyone else in the horror movie reviewing universe has already been as negative as humanly possible about this film before me.

It's not that I usually care about being late in the game when it comes to movie reviews—I'm known for writing about what I want when I want—but this time it's annoyed me even more than having to put a lazy emdash parenthesis in the middle of my sentence. Really, what's left to say about "Dracula 3D" that hasn't been said hundreds of times before? Nothing. We all know that "Dracula 3D" is a terrible movie with mostly horrible performances, bad dubbing, cheap CGI, rushed action scenes, and no originality whatsoever other than a "WTF" moment caused by a giant praying mantis.

What makes everything worse is that every review reads like a carbon copy of the same thing. It's as if someone gave out a press pack before "Dracula 3D" was even released and said, "There ya go, have at it! Hate away!" Judging by the number of reviews which came out before any normal person had access to the movie, I wouldn't be surprised if that very thing happened either.

Yes, I know that the big name horror sites often get advance screenings and a ton of promotional goodies that the independent bloggers are unlikely to see, but even the little guys were hating "Dracula 3D" before it was available to the general public. That tells me two things: 1. They didn't even watch the film, and 2. They lazily copied what the "big names" had to say. While a few may have bothered to watch the trailer, the whole thing reeks of "Rex Reed Syndrome".

So just to be different and a total contrarian, I'm going to tell you what I liked about "Dracula 3D" based on watching it half a dozen times in its entirety. It will surprise you to know that, yes, I liked it. I don't think it's the greatest version of "Dracula" ever made or anything ridiculous like that, but it's not as bad as the "critics" would have you believe. Well, except for the giant praying mantis and other CGI of course.

The first thing that I noticed was how minimalist the set decoration was. While not exactly "Dogville", there's very little in the way of props which aren't necessary to the action. Now, while some people would blame that on the budget, it's clearly intentional. With a budget of over $5,000,000, it's not as if Dario Argento couldn't afford furniture or ornaments, he just decided not to clutter up the scenes with them.

I never thought I'd ever defend a Dario Argento movie, but stuff like this goes back to the "Chekhov's Gun" rule and shows that the director actually knows what he's doing. You can't write Dario Argento off as some hack who hastily threw everything together with the intention of making a bad movie. If you watch closely, you'll even see that more props and set dressing are added as the film progresses. Sometimes the reverse is true too. The effect is like a line drawing being filled in with more details the more you look at it or having unnecessary bits rubbed out. I'd say that was pretty damned clever.

Another criticism is that Dario Argento has too much nudity in this movie compared to his others, but I fail to see how that is a problem especially given that the source material is supposed to a analogous to sexual promiscuity in the first place. Although that oversimplifies the themes used in Bram Stoker's novel, the sexual and erotic nature of the story is one thing which every filmmaker has picked up on over the years. So what's the problem? Did people not find Miriam Giovanelli arousing as Tania? Or was it just that Dario filmed his daughter Asia naked in some perceived to be pervy way? We're talking about professionals here making a professional movie. In the case of Asia being filmed by her father, who's to say that he was even on set at the time? Let's face it, as someone who changed Asia's diapers when she was a baby, it's not as if Dario hasn't seen his own daughter nude before. There's no perversion here, just European arty types who aren't ashamed of their own bodies. Why should they be? It's how God created us! Anything else that you read into those few seconds of film are just your own sick fantasies.

The thing is, I thoroughly appreciate both Miriam Giovanelli and Asia Argento getting naked in "Dracula 3D". Both are incredibly gorgeous women although Asia does sometimes look a lot like her dad facially and it's slightly off-putting. The tease of nudity was always in the Hammer movies which "Dracula 3D" liberally homages, but it's well and truly realised here.

Yes, that's a segue (as I continue to write in a self-conscious and self-referential way just because I can) to all the other homages in "Dracula 3D". Of course the new Dracula (Thomas Kretschmann) dresses like Max Schreck in "Nosferatu" (1922), spouts the "Listen to the children of the night..." line from the 1931 adaptation, and crawls up the wall like Christopher Lee in "Scars of Dracula" (1970), so what? It's all inspired by Stoker. How is that anything to get bent out of shape over? Thomas Kretschmann's acting isn't exactly lousy, and the big action scene where he takes out a room full of peasants is absolutely fantastic. Even the hypocritical, prudish Americans should be appeased by the violence and gore which they find more acceptable than the horror of seeing a nipple or two.

People really don't like the love story aspect of "Dracula 3D", which is a shame since Francis Ford Coppola did well out of it. Again, Dario Argento is merely homaging all the other movie versions of "Dracula" which incorporated the same un-Stokerish plot. Thus, while not being the "definitive version" of Bram Stoker's "Dracula", "Dracula 3D" certainly ties up all the movie adaptations well enough.

Dracula fans have always hoped that someone will make a mini-series several days long which really puts the novel to bed once and for all, but it's not likely to happen any time soon. I can't fault Dario Argento for not overreaching himself here either. He's just not the right kind of director for an intrically detailed adaptation of a Victorian novel which nobody reads anymore. But why then choose to remake "Dracula" which is already the most remade horror story of all time? The answer is complicated, but I'll try to explain my theory at the end of this post.

What I enjoyed most about "Dracula 3D" was the languid pace which is so European and perfect for a vampire movie. I felt pleasantly relaxed and was able to get immersed in what little atmosphere there was. The lack of atmosphere is possibly my main criticism of the movie since it's neither Hammer-esque nor typically Argento. The CGI is weird and jarring although it fits as a new level of Dario Argento "surrealism". The correct interpretion of the giant praying mantis is to see it as an extension of Dario Argento's nightmare style. Imagine, if you will, that "Dracula 3D" is a cheese-induced dream of all the Dracula movies you've ever seen, and you can't dismiss it so easily.

The bad performances including Unax Ugalde's and Marta Gastini's woodenness, Rutger Hauer only stopping short of doing his trademark rolling of his eyes almost out of his head and back in again, every bit of bad dubbing, cheap CGI, the 3D gimmick, and fight scenes over before they properly begin, all point to Dario Argento making an intentional metamovie of a Dracula movie fuelled nightmare in the mind of one of today's typical 12-year-olds rather than the 12-year-old that the director once was himself. Dario Argento uses "Dracula 3D" to criticise contemporary horror movies. This is beyond Wes Craven's dated "meta" abominations for trendy teenagers by miles.

It didn't quite work, but I got what Dario Argento was trying to do here. I enjoyed it. I don't think it was an entirely sensible decision to get so radically experimental again at the end of his career or to alienate his dopey fantards who are still stuck in the '70s and '80s, but Dario has earned a lot more of my respect for doing this (and for making "Mother of Tears") than I ever would have given him before. I probably can't explain why as well as I could because there's always the danger of reading too much into a movie which was never intended, and I'm holding some things back in case I end up looking like a total fool when Dario Argento reveals that he just made a bad film because he couldn't be bothered to make a good one, yet the evidence of the movie makes me willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

If you have time, I suggest you all watch "Dracula 3D" again and think about what you're seeing. This isn't a product to be dismissed like the hobby horror DVD-Rs which get shoved in your faces at conventions. Like it or not, Dario Argento doesn't make "products"; he's an auteur. Should you choose to accept it, there's a message here about the nature of horror movies, remakes, and the state of the younger generation's levels of artistic appreciation from an old man's perspective.

"Dracula 3D" is the quintessential metamovie of every Dracula movie that you've ever seen before and is meant to be viewed as a half-remembered nightmare of a dissatisfied modern horror fan. To see it as anything else completely misses the point.

Happy Birthday, Bram Stoker!

According to today's Google Doodle, today is Bram Stoker's 165th birthday. Well, it would be if he hadn't died on April 20th, 1912 (aged 64), or if he had been bitten by his most famous creation and become an immortal vampire.

In other Google news, the only reason I saw this doodle was because Google have decided to remove the custom background images from the homepage of their famous search engine. As you can see below, I had a really nice one of a cat with its tongue out which a nagging pop-up message asked me to remove a couple of days ago.

Apparently, it's all part of Google's redesign to make it easier for people with smartphones rather than real computers to be online. Great! (Note the sarcasm.) Now pandering to all the braindead texters has made my logon a completely depersonalised experience and caused the Google image search to be as worthless as trying to find anything on YouTube.

I thought the new Blogger dashboard was bad, but they just have to keep on pushing until we all jump ship to Wordpress and DuckDuckGo instead of leaving well enough alone. When will this madness end?

Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972)

"Johnny Alucard raises Count Dracula (Christopher Lee) from the dead in 1972 London. The Count goes after the descendants of Van Helsing."

It's hardly a secret that I prefer Hammer horror movies over absolutely anything American or European from the same time period. I grew up watching Hammer movies on TV and probably saw them all at least a dozen times each before I left school.

As much as I've wanted to like the classic Universal monster movies from the '30s and '40s, black and white has never done it for me. I like my films in colour otherwise I wouldn't have a colour TV. If there's one thing you can be sure of with a Hammer production, that's lots of colour. There are always lots of boobs and blood too which is a bonus especially in something now rated PG.

I'm sure you are so familiar with "Dracula A.D. 1972" that I don't need to go through all the rigmarole of telling you who does what to who and why. It's yet another tale of Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing in their famous roles as Count Dracula and Professor Van Helsing respectively but with a new angle (for the time) of being set (after a 19th century prologue) in the 1970s.

This was Hammer's attempt at modernising Dracula which worked in spite of itself and the fact that Christopher Lee really didn't want to have anything to do with it. The vampire Count isn't actually in "Dracula A.D. 1972" very much at all and only delivers about ten lines. Forget Bram Stoker's novel as much as you can because this "Dracula" is far more Hammer's invention.

Most of the action involves a gang of "young people" getting up to all sorts of mischief such as crashing parties, smoking pot, and hanging out in a coffee bar all day. I hate to use the term "hipsters" for them because that would imply that they are cool. If any of them had a brain, they'd be typical students.

Their leader, Johnny Alucard (Christopher Neame) is, of course, a disciple of Dracula who comes across as half Alex from "A Clockwork Orange" and half Austin Powers (before Austin Powers ever existed). I haven't posted a picture of Johnny Alucard because, to be honest, his character is so overacted that the ludicrous expressions he pulls throughout would make you think that "Dracula A.D. 1972" is a comedy when it really isn't.

Here's a nice picture of Caroline Munro about to be baptised in blood instead:

Caroline Munro only has a small but important role in the movie. Unfortunately, she doesn't get nude or turn into a vampiress which is a bit of a shame. I would have loved to have seen her sprout fangs and bite a couple of the other hot girls in the movie. Alas, it was not meant to be.

The story moves along at such a brisk pace that there's plenty of other entertainment apart from the vampirism anyway. Just looking at the sets or the clothes (or watching the background to see some of London in 1972) is quite educational. The number of "day for night" shots which nobody ever seems to pick up are rather clumsy and cause a few inconsistencies, but whatever, it's still Hammer.

The various action scenes are quite energetic and are more than adequate to tell the story. "Dracula A.D. 1972" doesn't suffer from too much talk although several scenes are unnecessary. The one where Van Helsing reverses the name of "Alucard" on a piece of paper as if it's some hugely difficult anagram springs to mind.

Although there isn't anything which you could really call character development in "Dracula A.D. 1972", the closest to it is done by the lovely Stephanie Beacham who is also, for lack of a better word, quite "pneumatic". Her boobies are the stars of the show and a lot of her screen time is devoted to semi-gratuitously showing her cleavage off in close-up. The artifice of putting crucifixes round her neck and ripping them off again twice fools no-one.

Anyway, with only 6 days left until Hallowe'en, "Dracula A.D. 1972" is the last vampire movie in my "Hallowe'en Countdown". Last year, I recommended the original Hammer "Dracula" (1958), but I now think "Dracula A.D. 1972" with Johnny Alucard's occult ritual suits the season better.

Dracula III: Legacy (2005)

"In the near future, Uffizi and Luke travel to the remote reaches of war torn Romania to rescue Elizabeth and finish the vampire once and for all. Along the way, they encounter TV news journalists and a corps of rebels trying to fight the vampire uprising which plagues their country."

As much as it's silly to even hope for the second sequel in a trilogy to be worthwhile, I was still expecting "Dracula III: Legacy" to be entertaining. I know that I should have learned my lesson way back when "Return of the Jedi" turned out to be a steaming pile of crap. I even saw the pattern forming with "The Godfather: Part III". Unfortunately, I have remained overly optimistic up to and past the recent awfulness of "The Dark Knight Rises". One day, I'm sure someone will be able to make a trilogy with a decent final third. Ah, but what do I care about non-horror movies anyway?

With all the positivity that a true horror fan could muster, I loaded my "Dracula III: Legacy" DVD into the player, and was thanked with one of the most boring and insulting pieces of lousy filmmaking that I have ever seen in my life. What a shame!

Even a day later, I still feel emotionally drained by the whole horrid experience, but not in the cathartic way that leads to a comfy sleep wrapped up in cats. No, in this case, I was drained of anything good that I could possibly say about "Dracula III: Legacy". As a vampire movie, it certainly did its job in sucking the joy right out of me.

Just look at the picture above. Do these guys look like vampire-hunters to you? Doesn't it look like a scene from some really bad comedy about a homeless guy and his mentally challenged friend? I'll let you decide which is which. Honestly, I think Patrick Lussier may have even intended for this movie to be the one which I jokingly just described because whatever he created here was certainly nothing like "Dracula II: Ascension".

While it may have had the same characters, promoting the wrong two of them to lead status was a schoolboy error. From the ending of the previous movie, I wanted to see more of Diane Neal and Stephen Billington bringing a reign of terror to the world as the new vampiric royal couple. I did not want to see any more of Jason Scott Lee's character who was supposed to be left for dead with an arrow through his heart, and I certainly didn't want a lowly morgue orderly to become a hamfisted and ham-acted hero.

Although their travels through war-torn Romania were interesting in a completely anachronistic and xenophobic way, it was pretty obvious that the filming was only done there because it was cheap. I know that "Dracula II: Ascension" was filmed in Romania too (at the same time as this in 2002), but the former had the right pace, imagination, and, I would make a guess, used up the bulk of the available budget. This third part was nothing but leftovers or sloppy seconds.

What happened to Dracula and his lovely bride? Replacing the most attractive female with Alexandra Westcourt as a reporter covering the war didn't make up for it. As pretty as she was, she was hardly a sexy vampiress.

Dracula didn't even make an appearance until the end and had only about as much on screen time as the combined (and rather pointless) cameos by Roy Scheider in both films. To make matters worse, Stephen Billington was replaced by Rutger Hauer! What the hell? Hello? Did nobody notice how awful he was at playing the vampire Lothos in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (1992)? That was such a cringeworthy Rutger Hauer role that it is now the stuff of legend.

I can forgive whoever cast Rutger Hauer as Dracula for not realising that his inability to play a vampire would also be apparent to anyone who saw him suck as Kurt Barlow in the "Salem's Lot" remake since, although that was made in 2004 and "Dracula III: Legacy" was released in 2005, chronologically, this movie was made first. I wonder why Stephen Billington didn't continue in the part? Was he written out to give Rutger Hauer a job or just to add a recognisable cult name to the cast? Continuity had been thrown out of the window with the first sequel so I'm sure nobody even questioned the decision.

At least the gorgeous Elizabeth returned for a few minutes near the end, and the fight between Dracula and Father Uffizi provided some much needed action in any otherwise almost completely actionless borefest. It again made no difference that the Dracula who could never be killed created a huge plothole in the twist ending. Or did it? I'm still not entirely convinced that something other than the obvious hadn't been set up for yet another lacklustre sequel.

What a total disappointment. I now have one of Patrick Lussier's "Dracula" movies rated as very good, one as average, and there's only one place that this can go. With great regret, I now consign "Dracula III: Legacy" to The Dungeon. May it rot in peace.

Dracula II: Ascension (2003)

"The burned corpse of Dracula (Stephen Billington) is revived by a wheelchair-bound scientist, Lowell (Craig Sheffer), and his devoted students in an effort to cure Lowell of a fatal disease."

Would you believe that a direct-to-video sequel could actually be good? No? I'm still not sure if it's any better than "Dracula 2000" technically, but I have to say that I had a thoroughly enjoyable experience watching "Dracula II: Ascension" for the very first time.

As I said in a previous post, I had no idea that any sequels to "Dracula 2000" even existed until I recently bought the DVD pack of all of them. Either my local Blockbuster in England didn't bother to get them, or I was interested in other things at the time. I know it's hard to believe, but, really, I do have other hobbies.

Anyway, "Dracula II: Ascension" was apparently filmed back-to-back with the second sequel, "Dracula III: Legacy" (which didn't get released until 2005 for some reason), and so is really the first half of a completely different story rather than continuing with the same cast of characters from "Dracula 2000". Thus, there's no sign of Gerard Butler, Jonny Lee Miller or even Justine Waddell. The absence of the latter two pleased me greatly.

Apart from the director, Patrick Lussier, being the same, and the title having "Dracula" in it, there's only the slightest link possible with the original film. The burned corpse of Dracula, which was apparently left to the local authorities to cut down from the illuminated Jesus sign, provide the vampire body which is the centre of all the shenanigans which follow. Strangely, he's never once referred to as "Dracula" during the whole movie, and he's blond like Lestat, so make of that what you will.

Of course, "Dracula II: Ascension" owes more to "Blade" than it does to anything by Anne Rice. Jason Scott Lee plays a laconic, half-vampire, Catholic priest to the best of his ability, but the "Blade" influence overshadows his ethnicity. I'm not entirely certain, but I think the comic book version of "Blade" was supposed to be English. Maybe I'm confusing him with someone else since it's been years since I read a comic. The point is, it doesn't matter if a vampire-hunter is black, white, yellow or purple because "Captain Kronos" was the first anyway. You thought I was going to say "Blade" again then, didn't you?

Now that I've brought "Captain Kronos" up, I'm sure he was the first character I remember who was bitten by a vampire and survived. Other than the mythology about destroying the head vampire to release the victims as invented by Bram Stoker, there wasn't any attempt to change that prior to Hammer. In the Wes Craven/Patrick Lussier "Dracula 2000" story, Dracula cannot be killed, so obviously they had to do something new which was actually done before slightly differently. Thus, you have Father Uffizi (Jason Scott Lee) having to very painfully burn the vampire infection out of himself in sunlight every morning. Presumably any other victim would have to do the same thing or turn into a vampire.

Obviously, at least one person wants to become a vampire in "Dracula II: Ascension" otherwise there wouldn't have been any need to steal Dracula's body from a morgue, chain it up under spotlights in a drained indoor swimming pool, or conduct cruel experiments on it. It isn't exactly "torture porn" by any stretch of the imagination though. If you've seen "Blade" then it isn't very original either. I'm tempted to throw in "Day of the Dead" as an influence too, but really any movie where a monster was captured and experimented on could have inspired this.

Usually I like to run through the cast at this point in a review and say what I thought of them, but I honestly didn't recognise any of the actors apart from Jason Scott Lee. I've probably seen them all in different things over the years, but I don't know their names without looking them up on the IMDb.

The disabled Professor (who is a big character in this) is played by Craig Sheffer. I thought he was channelling Gary Busey for most of his role so finding out that he wasn't a Busey was a surprise. John Light plays an English guy named Eric and there's nobody who was more shocked than me to find out that he was married to Neve Campbell.

As for the rest of the cast, who cares? The pretty girl, Diane Neal, who plays Elizabeth is very lovely and, of course, her wannabe boyfriend, Luke, I now know was played by Jason London. Are they famous on American TV or something? To me, they were unknowns.

It's only from the synopsis that I even knew that Dracula is played by Stephen Billington. At one point I thought he looked just like a younger version of Rutger Hauer. I only realised the irony of that thought after I'd watched "Dracula III: Legacy" later.

It doesn't matter if I'd never heard of any of the actors in this before anyway since they all do a really good job. I didn't notice any particularly weak links among them or even anything too horrible about the dialogue. There were a few smartass one-liners, but nothing stupidly comedic.

The effects are really good with lots of blood everywhere although only half a dozen moments could really be described as "gory". One of those involves a dead cat which I'd rather forget about, but I suppose it was necessary to that part of the story. As ever, I can't say that anything is scary in this unless you overthink it all.

I learned a couple of things about vampires from "Dracula II: Ascension" which I probably knew before but had forgotten. I'm not going to tell you what they were because I'm going to recommend that you watch this movie for yourself. You've probably already spotted that I've embedded the full movie from YouTube at the top of this review so you don't even have to go to Wal-mart or Kmart to grab a barebones copy from the $5 bargain DVD bins.

I enjoyed "Dracula II: Ascension" so much that I'm going to put it into "The Vault". It wasn't a new film, but it was new to me, and it was way above what I expected.

Dracula 2000 (2000)

"A group of thieves break into a chamber expecting to find paintings, but instead they release the count himself, who travels to New Orleans to find his nemesis' daughter, Mary Van Helsing."

One of the best things about having already reviewed a movie with a slightly different title in the UK is that I can review it all over again without messing up the way Blogger automatically assigns a URL to the post. An even greater thing is that, several years on from when I originally wrote that review, I now get the chance to write a better one which doesn't suck quite as much even if the movie itself still does.

Having rewatched "Dracula 2000", a movie directed by Patrick Lussier not Wes Craven (as the artwork on the Miramax DVD might fool you into thinking), I grudgingly have to admit that I sort of enjoyed it. It was still pretty bad, but maybe not quite as horrible as I may have led you to believe. It was certainly no worse than "Bram Stoker's Dracula" (1992) apart from all the blatant product placement for "Virgin", but it wasn't quite good enough to compete with "Blade" (1999). Let's face it, when it comes to vampire action-adventures, nothing can beat "Blade" anyway.

Dragging "Dracula" into the modern world has always been problematic for filmmakers. Although I love "Dracula A.D. 1972" and consider it to be the best of the Hammer "Dracula" movies , I'm the first to admit that it has a lot of flaws which would make it a "bomb" for the "real" movie critics. Similarly, "Blade: Trinity" (2004) was also quite a failure even though there wasn't a whole lot wrong with Dominic Purcell's updated character within the internal logic of the movie. In "Dracula 2000", Gerard Butler played Dracula very well indeed, but it was such a very different kind of Dracula that I don't think a lot of people were willing to accept it.

The thing is, I love vampire movies. It doesn't matter how lame and formulaic most of them may appear to be to other people, I'll usually still get something out of them. Vampires movies, unfortunately, are the least scary part of the horror genre and we can all count (no pun intended) the number of terrifying vampire moments which we've seen on the fingers of one hand. The fault lies in the source material since everyone goes back to Bram Stoker's novel for their inspiration even though it was more of an adventure than a truly horrific story even at the time he wrote it.

Thus, "Dracula 2000", as a re-working of the major elements in Bram Stoker's novel, suffered from being dated, clichéd, formulaic and, obviously, derivative of every other vampire movie which has ever been made. It wasn't as if everyone didn't already know this so, of course, it had a sense of fun about it and even some intentional comedy. I haven't watched the sequels yet to see if the same style continued (hopefully not), but the fact that it spawned two sequels means that somebody else liked it other than just Wes Craven himself.

My main reasons for liking "Dracula 2000" were as basic (or just base) as being very appreciative of the updated "bloofer" ladies. With Jennifer Esposito, Jeri Ryan and Colleen Fitzpatrick all fanged-up, how could anyone not enjoy this movie? They certainly made poor little Justine Waddell look plainer than one of Andrew Lloyd Webber's relatives in comparison. Trust me, now you have that image in your head, you will never be able to look at her the same way again.

As for the story itself, it was a bit silly, but what would you honestly expect from any Wes Craven produced movie which brings Dracula into the 21st century? How would you do it any better? I could happily lose the incongruously comic moments, but that's just my preference.

I hated the way Christopher Plummer pronounced "Dracula" as "Drah-coo-lee-ah" like a five-year-old child who misheard the name would, and I couldn't bear Jonny Lee Miller's fake London accent (he's from Surrey), but I can let those things pass since a Scotsman (who was yet to become a lot more famous) was playing Dracula.

The effects were good. There weren't enough of them, but, they worked. You don't need much more than a a load of fake teeth, some make-up and buckets of blood for a vampire movie anyway. The CGI, when it happened, was also okay.

I wasn't keen on some of the music. In particular, there was an awful rock band who appeared on a screen outside the Virgin Megastore. Dracula may have exclaimed, "Brilliant!" although, clearly, they weren't. There wasn't a lot else to the soundtrack other than crappy bands in the background so it was what it was.

There really isn't much more I can say about "Dracula 2000" since this is the second time that I've reviewed it. The mystery of Dracula's origins still seems very clever to me and I liked that, but, I'm still not going to change my rating much. "Dracula 2000" was a slightly below average movie when I first watched it, and it's still an entertaining yet slightly below average movie today.

The Miramax Wes Craven Series at Kmart

I had another "Big Day Out" earlier today which involved a trip to my favourite Chinese buffet and Kmart. I used to love Kmart almost as much as Rainman did, but, recently, because they seem to have given up on putting the DVDs out in any recognisable order, sifting through the DVD bins to see what turns up has been too much like hard work. I still did it though.

Although I've been tempted by the Echo Bridge distributions of Miramax titles many times, apart from "The Faculty" and "Phantoms" double-feature for $2.99, I've never bought one from Kmart before. I was hoping that the "Dracula 2000" 4 pack (really a 3 pack with an extra movie which I've never heard of) would turn up, but, until today, I'd only seen the "Dracula 2000" and "Cursed" double-feature.

Anyway, to make a short story even shorter, as you can see, I finally found and bought the 4 pack above. I'd already seen the first movie ages ago, which was called "Dracula 2001" in the UK, but I honestly didn't know there were two sequels to it until fairly recently.

Depending on how good they are, I might review these movies later this week or early next week. I already have a load of reviews which I'm working on at the moment so I didn't really need to complicate matters with another pack of older horrors. But since when has need ever had anything to do with greed?

For $5 though, it wasn't that greedy. I'm very glad that I didn't know about these movies to buy them individually at full price when they first came out. People who did must be furious with themselves now.

Nosferatu (1922)

"Originally released in 1922 as Nosferatu, Eine Symphonie Des Grauens, director F.W. Murnau's chilling and eerie adaption of Stoker's Dracula is a silent masterpiece of terror which to this day is the most striking and frightening portrayal of the legend."

To be honest with you right from the beginning, I don't think much of "Nosferatu" (otherwise known as the the world's first movie copyright infringement). I only uploaded this film to YouTube because I realised that I still hadn't used my account for anything constructive in the six years since I joined the site.

Having recently discovered that I could actually upload movies longer than fifteen minutes, I decided to start filling my YouTube channel with public domain horrors. I know other people have done this, but since I also discovered that it takes over an hour to upload anything, I don't think I'm going to be a very great rival to the big name "PD" channels.

But anyway, "Nosferatu" sucks. Not only does Graf Orlok (or Count Dracula) suck blood as a vampire (albeit rather invisibly) but the whole film is wretchedly boring. I may have over a dozen copies of it scattered throughout my Mill Creek and other budget horror DVDs, but that's not because I like the film in any way.

For a start, it's all in black and white which is a bit shitty really. Then, to add insult to injury, it's silent (apart from the crappy music added to it after the fact) with a load of title cards which you have to read. Yes, read! Who the Hell watches a film to read it? You'll expect me to start reading subtitles on modern foreign movies next!!!

Of course, I'm being sarcastic as I'm quite aware of how much of a philistine any of that would make me look if I truly felt that way, but I really dislike "Nosferatu" to the point of absolute hatred.

What I hate most about the film is that it's all style over substance. It's just a few "scary" images created by the very odd looking Max Schreck with the ripped-off "Dracula" story underneath it all. Bram Stoker's novel is infinitely better than this crap, and the name changes don't help the movie's cause either.

I loathe the acting especially as I have no idea if the actors were actually saying anything resembling what appears as a caption on screen, and I find the whole cast to be very unattractive. I just can't think myself back ninety years ago into a time before I existed to appreciate any of it. Not only is "Nosferatu" old but everything about it is entirely alien to me, distancing, and it just doesn't grab my attention.

Now I know there are some people who will defend "Nosferatu" to the hilt with all the tired arguments about how groundbreaking it was and how I need to learn all about the styles of the German silent movie industry before being so judgemental, but seriously, have you ever tried watching this film recently?

That's another reason why I posted it back up to YouTube. I want people to actually sit there and watch this crap for as long as they can stand it. I can barely make it ten minutes in without wanting to switch it off, and that's not just because I've seen it so many times before.

"Nosferatu" simply isn't a very good film. Yes, we're lucky to have it since all the copies were supposed to be destroyed for copyright infringement, but it's still badly shot and directed. It's almost as bad as the later Bela Lugosi "Dracula" (based on the official Bram Stoker stage play), and that's saying something.

Basically, "Dracula" works well as a book but has never translated well to screen. Just because "Nosferatu" was the first movie adaptation of the story does not make it the best.

Dracula (1958)

(AKA Horror of Dracula)



"After Jonathan Harker attacks Dracula at his castle (apparently somewhere in Germany), the vampire travels to a nearby city, where he preys on the family of Harker's fiancée. The only one who may be able to protect them is Dr. van Helsing, Harker's friend and fellow-student of vampires, who is determined to destroy Dracula, whatever the cost."

The final entry in my "Hallowe'en Countdown" is Hammer's version of "Dracula" from 1958. It may not be all that horrific for a modern audience but you can't have Hallowe'en without Dracula and this is the version that I grew up with.

I was, am, and always will be a fan of Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing no matter how bad the later films were that either of them got themselves into. Neither ever gave a bad performance and they took their roles completely seriously in spite of how ludicrous the subject matter was.

Hammer's "Dracula" is still the quintessential vampire film for all lovers of the genre. It may not be strictly accurate to the book (but then again, what Hammer film is?), but it's certainly the most enjoyable and watchable version ever made.

A great atmosphere, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing fighting it out, beautiful actresses, rubber bats on wires, and all done on a budget which wouldn't even pay for Keanu Reeves' voice coach in a more modern production.

This is what horror movies were all about when I was young and you couldn't even call yourself a horror fan back then without having watched all the Hammer and Amicus films first.

I have absolutely nothing bad to say about "Dracula" except that, even though it was shown on the BBC nearly every year, it took far too long to become available to a British audience on VHS.

Now it's available just about everywhere on DVD, go on and spoil yourself.

Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)

"The vampire comes to England to seduce a visitor's fiancée and inflict havoc in the foreign land."

When I first saw Francis Ford Coppola's version of "Dracula" back in 1993, I was disappointed. I went into the film thinking that I was going to see a bigger budget version of Hammer and ended up having no memory of the film other than Keanu Reeve's appalling attempt at an English accent and Gary Oldman's weird hairstyle which reminded me of a couple of breasts on his head.

Over the years, I've come to appreciate what Coppola tried to do a lot more. Instead of making a real horror film out of Bram Stoker's novel, he tried to turn it into a love story and there's nothing really wrong with that at all. Just because it didn't work so well for Universal's "The Mummy" (1932), which was itself little more than a reworking of Dracula anyway, obviously didn't deter anyone.

Of course, for a hardcore horror fan, "Bram Stoker's Dracula" was quite weak. Sexist as it may be, I think this was a film for girls or couples on a date night not people like me. My girlfriend at the time absolutely loved it and I went along with her enthusiasm for a while by collecting the comics, posters, the crappy Sega Megadrive game, and even the coffin-shaped VHS box set (with a copy of the book and a little badge in it). I even joined "The Dracula Society" in London and became penfriends with a lot of weirdos who I hope I never meet in real life. Remember, this was ages before the internet as we know it even existed.

Anyway, having rewatched "Bram Stoker's Dracula" quite a few times, I have now developed a fondness for it which is pretty much based around Winona Ryder (who does a really good English accent) and Sadie Frost. Everyone else in the film can go to hell as far as I'm concerned although Richard E. Grant was the best of the bad lot of Lucy Westenra's suitors.

I never appreciated at the time how beautiful Winona Ryder was as Mina nor did the very ginger Sadia Frost do much for me but getting older changes the way you look at things. In 1992 when the film was made, both actresses were at their peak physically and professionally. If "Bram Stoker's Dracula" should be remembered for one thing alone, it's their uber hot kiss in the rain just as Dracula arrives in England.

Bram Stoker's novel always had an element of eroticism about it with vampirism being an allegory in many ways for sexually transmitted disease. If you ever see a copy of it, I suggest reading as many of the footnotes as you can absorb in "The Essential Dracula: The Definitive Annotated Edition". I learned a lot from that book which is far more than I can say about any of the Dracula films. It was thus no great surprise that the sexual elements were made a lot more of than previously.

Another very memorable scene was the attempted seduction of Jonathan Harker by Dracula's brides. Basically, every time I watch that scene, Monica Bellucci stands out as being the most beautiful of all of them and I wouldn't mind being bitten by her myself.

A disappointing memory for me about Coppola's adaptation was that Anthony Hopkins was rumoured to be reprising his role as Van Helsing in a film that never actually happened, "Chronicles of Van Helsing". I think it became a comic book series for a while but, ultimately, the only movie which came from it was that awful Hugh Jackman version, "Van Helsing" (2004). It's probably best that it never happened though as I don't think much of Anthony Hopkin's performance in "Bram Stoker's Dracula" at all. There's too much comedy to it and the Van Helsing character seems out of place in an otherwise completely serious film. He's certainly no Peter Cushing.

Obviously, my Dracula will always be Christopher Lee so I still barely even register Gary Oldman in the movie at all. It's a shame really as the story is supposed to be about his character but the way that he played three (almost four) different versions was doomed to failure from the start as none of them make up a whole.

I'm keeping "Bram Stoker's Dracula" in the Video Vault for now though as, until somebody finally makes a definitive adaptation of the novel, it's still the most ambitious version so far. It's a very flawed film for sure but still highly watchable and entertaining for, unfortunately, mostly bad reasons. It's a time capsule of what horror became in the '90s.

Upcoming Horror Movie - Dracula 3D (2012)

I don't know much about this project so I've posted the interview with Dario Argento so he can explain it all to you instead.

One thing that I can almost guarantee is that I'm not going to like it even with Rutger Hauer as Abraham Van Helsing and Asia Argento as Lucy. Christopher Lee is my Dracula (and to a lesser extent so is Gary Oldman) and the relatively unknown Thomas Kretschmann just doesn't look the part. I thought he was great in Timur Bekmambetov's "Wanted" a couple of years ago but a lead role as Dracula is a big step up from that.

All this is a long way off yet though so it might even be good even if there aren't any rubber bats on strings or buxom beauties straining at their undergarments to escape.

What do you think about "Dracula 3D"? Are you looking forward to it or dreading it?

Dracula 2001 (2000)

(AKA Dracula 2000)



It's nine years old now so you've probably seen it anyway, but, as it's now doing the rounds on TV, I thought I'd write this to spare some people who may have missed the DVD release first time around. Also having two different titles may confuse people into thinking there is a sequel but the date change was due to a late release in the UK.

It started off really well...

Plot outline from the IMDb: "A group of thieves break into a chamber expecting to find paintings, but instead they release the count himself, who travels to New Orleans to find his nemesis' daughter, Mary Van Helsing."

There are some slickly shot impalings with blood everywhere and it had the potential to all be very sexy...

But then we see Mary Van Helsing and realise that she truly is no oil painting! Poor Justine Waddell is just not up to the part of playing a leading "heroine". She hasn't really got the acting ability or the looks for it. She really needed longer hair and a bra. Plus she's South African so her fake British accent is annoying to say the least.

Similarly, Jonny Lee Miller is so annoyingly "chippy" that all he needs to do is say, "Cheers Mate!" and he would be the chaviest Mockney ever!

The whole thing feels like two movies in one struggling against each other (a bit like Justine's droopy boobs). I'll try and write my review in that way and see what happens... actually maybe not.

On the one hand, you have yet another Dracula story complete with amusingly rearranged quotes from the novel and even three "bloofer ladies". Then, on the other, you have here an action adventure similar to "Blade" mixed with the "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen".

Time for a change of tense before I end up writing a synopsis.

Nathan Fillion turned up at one point playing a priest which amused me too considering that his most famous horror role so far (outside of "Slither") has been Caleb who dressed as a priest in "Buffy". Talk about being typecast!

Dracula was played quite well but not very scarily by Gerard Butler. In fact, none of it was very scary at all which is a major problem for a "horror" movie! Dracula just isn't frightening anymore. Vampires are so "comic book" now that I think the chances of there ever being a really scary vampire film ever again are quite slim ...so it wasn't all the director's fault!

Incidentally, in spite of the longer title of the film, the director wasn't Wes Craven but Patrick Lussier (who I think is more famous for Canadian TV than movie making).

My favourite vampire in the film was Jennifer Esposito who can bite me anytime! She really did the sexy vampiress thing perfectly so it's no wonder that she's gone on to much better things since.

It's not that this is a bad movie. Far from it. It's entertaining enough to keep you interested all the way to the end, but it's all far from perfect. Characters are not much more than caricatures, and everything zips along at a very quick pace with huge amounts of product placement for the "Virgin Megastore" throughout.

There's also a "surprise" Biblical ending to Dracula's origins slapped incongruously over the top of everything. Dracula, it appears, is really Judas Iscariot doomed to walk the earth for all time as a vampire. Well, that's hardly a new story (since it comes from old folk superstitions anyway), but it has nothing to do with the Bram Stoker novel which made Dracula first and foremost the anti-christ in all but name.

So, the bottom line is that it all tried too hard and failed. I therefore rate it as a 4.5 out of 10. The half mark was for Jennifer Esposito of course.