Fantastic!

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

I may not be the biggest fan of famed Italian horror director Dario Argento, but I definitely have nothing but the utmost respect for he and his contributions to the world of cinema. He's done some incredibly work and his style is the sort-of thing that movie-goers dream of and film students salivate over. So I loaded up his recent 3D adaptation of Bram Stoker's "Dracula" with a certain sense of intrigue. I saw an early concept trailer some time ago that looked woefully bad, but it was clearly unfinished, so I opted not to judge the film by its quality. I needed to see the entire completed film start-to-finish to be fair and balanced in my assessment....I should have just stuck with the trailer. It had all the camp and unintentional hilarity of the finished film, but none of the prolonged and shockingly boring padding."Dracula 3D" might just be one of the worst adaptations of the character I've ever seen thanks to the nonsensically and bizarrely awful production. While lead Thomas Kretschmann salvages what he can in a surprisingly decent performance, the film just implodes around him. Forget what you've heard about the incompetent craftsmanship, laughable visual effects and amateurish direction, because despite what you might suspect... it's far worse than what you might have imagined. Nothing will quite prepare you for just how poor this work is in virtually every conceivable sense.The film predominately follows Mina Harker (Marta Gastini), as she travels to the village of Passo Borgo at the foot of the Carpathian Mountains sometime after her husband Jonathan (Unax Ugalde) was sent to meet Count Dracula for business. Soon enough, she encounters the vampire count (Thomas Kretschmann), who is entranced by her resemblance to his beloved Dolinger- who had died some centuries ago. And it soon becomes clear that he desires Mina for a dark and devious purpose. And so, Mina must team with famed vampire hunter Van Helsing (Rutger Haur) to try and stop the vile vampire lord...The film is an absolute trainwreck. The quality of filmmaking is shocking, with very little effort put into basic facets of production like frame composition and flow, and a complete lack of post- production tweaking like color- timing or pacing. Most sequences are constructed with only the most basic of set-ups; poorly framed with one or two cameras simply set- down somewhere vaguely near the action on tripods with a complete lack of cinematic lighting or eye towards capturing the scene dynamically. It feels completely thrown together without interest. Completely apathetic. And outside of maybe mildly tinting scenes vaguely a dark blueish- green during the night or lazily brightening the image with a mild yellow "tinge" for daytime scenes, it seems no effort was put into trying to manipulate the cinematography. The editing is also inorganic and lacks any sense of real flow, lending to the film feeling bloated and boring despite being less than two hours long. There's plenty that could have been done to improve the speed at which scenes play out, but the lack of effort prevents this.The effects? My god, the effects! This was a 2012 film, but it boasts digital trickery about on par with a 1992 TV-movie. I know not to expect "Avatar" quality digital trickery, but when an early green- screen sequence at a train-station actually boasts some of the same stock background elements I got for free online over five years ago, lazily patched together with no treatment to blend them realistically, you know the effects are gonna be something else... in all the wrong ways. Digital creatures all move with hilariously inorganic motion and shine like plastic. Green-screen sequences look cartoonish and completely unreal. And then there's the Mantis. If you've seen the trailer, you know what I'm talking about. It might be the worst digital effects sequence I've ever seen. It comes out of nowhere, lacks any set-up or pay-off and looks like something out of a children's cartoon. It might be the single most unintentionally hilarious thing ever committed to the screen.Add to that flat performances from the bulk of the cast, forgettable music that fails to thrill or enthrall, atrocious cinematography and some of the most bland screen writing I've ever had the misfortune of witnessing, and you got yourself one of the most perplexing failures in recent cinematic memory. If it weren't for one or two decent roles performed by actors far too talented to be here, the unintentional humorous moments of camp that crop up here and there and gorgeous co-star Miriam Giovanelli's penchant to be nude for much of the run- time, it'd be unwatchable. Argento... you're a talented man. And you've made some phenomenal films. But crap like this won't do."Dracula 3D" barely scoots by with a 2 out of 10. If you want some laughs, maybe pop it on. But even then, they're few and far in- between, and the bulk of the film is just an incoherent, incompetent, boring mess.

Famed Italian horror maestro Dario Argento of "Suspiria" finally sinks his own fangs in Bram Stoker's classic novel "Dracula" with his own version of the immortal tale of terror. Dario has taken liberties like all filmmakers has done before in the past. Although obvious, third-rate CGI recurs throughout "Dracula 3-D," the Argento slant on the infamous fangster is still eminently worth watching for Stoker aficionados. The casting of Rutger Hauer as the Dutch hero Van Helsing is a triumph not only because Hauer hails from the Netherlands, but also because his interpretation of Van Helsing is probably the best thing about this Dracula. Thomas Kretschmann isn't the best Count. Indeed, neither the spirits of Christopher Lee nor Bela Lugosi need worry about Kretschmann's Dracula. Gary Oldman's Dracula also surpasses him, but Kretschmann is far from the worst. He amounts to a fair to middling Dracula. Basically, he lacks presence, and he also lacks an accent.Several differences mark this vampire take on Stoker's text. First, "Dracula 3-D" confines itself to Transylvania. Second, the residents of the town of Passborg not only know about the notorious Count, but they also are grateful to him for his economic assistance. Nevertheless, the residents know better than to linger after dusk, and this gets Tanja (Miriam Giovanelli) in trouble when she has an assignation with a married man, Milos (Christian Burruano), in a stable after her mother, Jarmila (Maria Cristina Heller) has warned her about staying out past dark. Milos refuses to escort Tanja back into town for fear that he will expose himself to charges of adultery. Tanja argues that nobody will see him because everybody is locked up safely in their homes. Nevertheless, Milos lets Tanja fend for herself, and she is attacked by a huge owl as she walks home through the woods. This scene never happened in Stoker, and Dracula never assumes the shape of an owl. In fact, Dracula takes the form of several animals and insects in "Dracula 3-D" that he never took in the novel. Of course, he appears as a wolf at one point, but he also appears as a cockroach and a mantis. The mantis scene is particularly effective despite the obvious CGI. Fourth, Jonathan Harker (Unax Ugalde) goes to work for Dracula as a librarian. Incidentally, Jonathan Harker masqueraded as a librarian in the "Horror of Dracula" so he could kill Dracula, but his plans backfired on him. Five, instead of Dracula attacking Harker after he cuts himself on a shard of glass from the picture casing of his wife, Tanja feeds on him until Dracula bursts into the room and sends her packing. Harker never recovers his Dracula's blood-sucking and later Van Helsing puts him to the stake. Repeatedly, Tanja takes advantage of Harker. Sixth, Dracula materializes out of nowhere every time that he shows up. He materializes into the room where the Passborg officials have gathered to deal with him. He kills them all except one who has abetted him. Dracula mesmerizes Lucy and bites her on the back of her knee on the left leg. She dies not long afterward. Interestingly enough, Van Helsing catches Lucy with an infant child that she has feasted on at night. Seventh, Van Helsing relies on garlic-encrusted revolver bullets to destroy Dracula and Mina shoots him to death with this exotic bullet. Eighth, Argento treats Renfield in a different manner. Renfield worships the ground that Tanja treads and he shows up with the townspeople prepare to drive a wooden stake through her heart. She escapes, but Renfield roughs up this crew before he is incarcerated. Aside from his interesting departures from Stoker, Argento includes Castle Dracula in this yarn. Generally speaking, "Dracula 3-D" sticks to the basics, with the villainous Count generating paranoia in the hearts of simple country folks. We only get a glimpse of Van Helsing's Carfax sanitarium with its horde of insane patients. Tanja bites off more than she can chew or suck when she takes on Van Helsing and he surprises her with a cross that kills her, reducing her body to powder that it blown away to leave nothing of her presence. Argento aficionados will enjoy "Dracula 3-D."

This must have been one cheap production! Dario Argento, once my favorite horror director, has made a Dracula for those amused by the CGI giant snake films that run on the Sci-fi Channel. There is something about bad CGI that makes them hard to even laugh at. Some old school FX, like the man-in-a-cheap-monster-suit, could be charming. there is no charm to be had with bad computer effects. The ones in this Dracula film look like they were leftover from a low budget 1990's movie. Dario Argento once had an outstanding visual style (Suspiria, Inferno). His Dracula movie is overlit and fake looking. The digital photography makes it look like porn. Add in the frequent nudity (the only visually appealing images in the film) and one starts to wonder if Dracula's bride will be sucking more than blood. My friend and I gave up taking this film seriously after the first half-hour. The remainder of the running time was spent casting the porn version. Dracula - Dale Dabone (in place of the only fair Thomas Kretchsmann)Mina - Stoya (in place of Marta Gastini) Jonathan - James Deen (in place of the lame Unax Uglade) Lucy - Sasha Grey (in place of Asia Argento)Tania - Lexi Belle (in place of Miriam Giovanelli) Van Helsing - Nina Hartley (in place of tired looking Rutger Hauer)fat priest - Ron Jeremy (of course!)Now that I write this, I think that Argento's film would have been improved with that cast, even if it still had no sex in it. At least the players would have matched the photography.

If you like 70's type horror movies then watch this one. The acting was terrible, almost without any feelings at all. The dialog was lacking anything resembling natural conversations and left me not really believing any of it. Hard to believe anyone could read the script and decide to back it. But... I liked the movie and smiled frequently because of these poor qualities. In 3D, most of the scenes were pretty good. There were not very many eye popper scenes and panning in the woods was occasionally disorienting. The rest of the movie was really pretty good in 3D and I'd watch it again in 3d, not 2D. Almost unbelievable that it was made last year. It really reminded me of a 70's horror. All it needed was Peter Cushing as Van Helsing. There are many really trashy horror movies being made today and this is not one of them.