Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

That was an excellent one.

Memorable, crazy movie

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Never heard of this movie? Well, it does have a fair number of reviews. This is one of the worst movies I've seen all month and it's so sad I have to end Book Month like this. This movie features Dracula trying to get his bride. That's really all I could follow. I fell half asleep watching this thing.It was just that dull. It's simply an ugly looking film. The slow motion is used so terribly. The movie ends with Dracula being impaled by a cross and that's it. What an anti-climax. The costumes look like something out of a Halloween party and the teeth are so fake looking. I obviously didn't see this in 3D and wouldn't have wanted to give anything more to see this.Throughout the film, there's random scripture being recited and mostly pointless religious imagery. It's just a movie that accomplishes nothing and it does seem to go right by as so little happens. Strange how it says the movie's 110 minutes long when every version I could find was only 93, but that's probably for the better. Well, that's it for Book Month. Now I'm doing Cult Month! Not cult as in worship, cult as in films that have reached cult status.

Warning: the actual plot of the film has very little to do with Bram Stoker, Universal, or Hammer films aside from recycling the character names. That may or may not be a disappointment depending on whether you are tired of the same old tropes or want to see them done one more time with Argento's trademark visual style.Speaking of which - the photography and scene design roll over your visual inputs like melted butter. Every scene, every shot is just drenched in color and detail. Sometimes I wanted to do a screen capture of a scene and frame it on a wall of my house. So that alone made me feel as if I got my money's worth and spent my time in a worthwhile manner.On the other hand...well, on the other hand, some of the dialog is risibly bad. And some of the acting (including 70-80% of what Asia Argento does) is clunky and wooden. I'm willing to overlook some of this in a film where the lines are probably dubbed...but there are an awful lot of clunkers here that detract from the film. Casting: the actor playing Dracula was an interesting choice and had some visual appeal, but seemed too calm and sedate for the part. That might have just been an effect of the way the character was written. Gerard Butler had the same problem in a previous Dracula movie - they just didn't frame the actor in a way that best framed his strengths. This actor doesn't ruin the movie by any means, but he isn't Christopher Lee. You don't spend all the down time between his scenes holding your breath for his next appearance. As I mentioned, the plot's all over the place and doesn't really have a lot of momentum and sometimes doesn't make a lot of sense. The editor also tends to stick in short scenes and shots here and there that either stop the movie cold or else disrupt the flow. I'm not sure I got to see the best version of the movie, either - for instance, Dracula's spy/henchman Zoltan is made out to be a pretty ruthless bad ass in three different scenes, but Hauer/Van Helsing dispatches him in about 5 seconds. And did I mention that Hauer/Van Helsing only appears after more than 1/2 the film has gone by? Oh, well. It was worth seeing once in the DVD player on a Tuesday afternoon when I was under the weather and unable to go to work.

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.

A girl goes out in the woods to meet her boyfriend. He warns her not to go alone in the woods on her way back. She won't listen and throws away the crucifix he gave her. In the woods she's chased by an owl who turns into Dracula and bites her neck.Jonathan Harker arrives to work for Dracula. One of Dracula's vampire girls can't resist and attacks Harker but Dracula appears and pushes her away only to bite Harker himself.Back home Harker's girl Mina is worried. She decides to travel to find out about him and stays with her friend Lucy. Lucy, too is attacked, dies and is buried. The town people decide to kill the first girl attacked in the woods but Dracula appears and stops them. The town has a pact with Dracula. They meet to put an end to the pact but Dracula kills most of them except his minions.Abraham Van Helsing shows up. He doesn't get any support but is willing to look for Harker and warns Mina to stay away from Dracula. Van Helsing soon runs into Dracula's minions and kills them. Will he be able to destroy Dracula before he has his way with Mina, the girl he is madly in love with? Argento's Dracula is a very low budget Euro horror movie, a faithful retelling of Stoker's original story, complete with Hammer-inspired sights and sounds. It's filmed in English which was a problem for the secondary Italian actors. That accounts for the problems in dubbing and also the removed camera. American audiences will be more comfortable later in the movie once the principal English speaking actors take over and the director isn't concerned any more to film close-ups of faces.A more serious problem are the poor effects resulting from the low budget. The CGI effects are shockingly poor for a movie done in 2012. The original Hammer Dracula movies had better effects than this. If you're used to a fascinating villain that will steal the show, you won't get that here. They should have given Kretschmann's Dracula more to do than just complain about his heartache. In fact, there is no central character in this movie. That makes Rutger Hauer's presence in the final third of the movie very refreshing because he does command the screen and now you have someone to root for.This is the kind of movie you want to like. With all the vampire diversity we are getting in movies and TV it's nice to see the original story told once again. You want to like this movie also for the involvement of the Argentos, of Kretschmann and Hauer. But this movie doesn't make it easy unfortunately. A shame they couldn't/wouldn't get more funding and make Dracula an outstanding production. Fans of Argento and Dracula deserved better.