Film Review: Dracula 2000 (2000)

In 1930s Hollywood gangster films suggested that the crime didn’t pay. Same conclusion can be made after the opening sequences of Dracula 2000, 2000 horror film directed by Patrick Lussier. Small band of criminals break in to house of London antiquities dealer Matthew Van Helsing (played by Christopher Plummer), enter high security vault and open a silver coffin, convinced that it contains something very valuable. It turns out that the coffin contained Vlad Tepes a.k.a. Count Dracula (played by Gerard Butler), vampire who has been awaken from century-old dream and immediately began to feast on unfortunate burglars, turning them into his own vampire sidekicks. Dracula flies to New Orleans and is being followed by Van Helsing, who is actually a vampire hunter, and his young assistant Simon Shepard (played by Jonny Lee Miller). Dracula wants to find Van Helsing’s daughter Mary (played by Justine Waddell) with whom he is telepathically connected.

With so many film inspired by Bram Stoker’s famous vampire novel, it is very difficult to film makers to create anything particularly original. Scriptwriter Joel Soisson doesn’t bother to try, with possible exception of introduce revisionist (and not particularly convincing) origin story of Dracula, this time related to New Testament. The plot is quite predictable and Gerard Butler in the role of most charismatic of all horror film villains looks more like a fashion model than embodiment utter Evil. Despite that, relatively high budget provided by Miramax reflects itself in decent cinematography by Peter Pau, effective musical score by Marco Beltrami and couple of competently directed action scenes. Dracula 2000 doesn’t shy away from its exploitation cinema roots and delivers few scenes with erotic content uncharacteristic for Hollywood horror films of its time. This, however, isn’t enough to compensate other flaws. Dracula 2000 is merely watchable film that was rejected by critics and audience alike, although two direct-to-video sequels were made in subsequent years.

RATING: 4/10 (+)

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