Bram Stoker's

Dracula

THE STORY: From what I understand people either love this movie or they hate it. Before I get into what I thought of it, let me tell ya a little story. You see, when this movie first came out on video (in 92 or 93....can't remember exactly) I was stationed in Mannheim, Germany. There was only one small video store at the PX and they had a suprisingly limited amount of tapes. A new release may have about seven available copies, but there were THOUSANDS of soldiers and their families there! I'm not kidding about this...this led to actual fistfights in the video store over movies. (There was only ONE channel on The Armed Forces Network then....so entertainment was hard to come by.) When Bram Stoker's Dracula come out on video I went to rent a copy...the video store was full to overcrowding with soldier and family members waiting for the copies to be put on the shelf. Knowing that there was only going to be at best ten or so copies and that there were at least twenty five people waiting I left. I figured I'd just wait until another day. It took me about two months to finally get a copy!

Why did I want to see it so badly? Well, it was a Dracula movie! I wanted to see the count wreak his evil! I wanted to get scared out of my wits like when I was a kid! But there was little to be scared about....I'm not exactly sure how faithful to the book this movie is or about the history of Vlad Tepes...Stoker's inspiration for Dracula...but here's what happened.

In the 15th century Vlad, a Romanian king goes off to battle the Muslims. He leaves his beloved wife Elizabetha and runs off to kill a bunch of people. Vlad is successful. his forces win the day, but his enemies send a phony message to Elizabetha telling her that Vlad was killed. Distraught she throws herself from the castle walls and into the river. (Man, love sure has changed! If I got blown away tomorrow my wife would get $200,000 and I'm damn sure she wouldn't jump out of window!)

Vlad goes nutso when he returns. Because she committed suicide she won't be allowed in Heaven! Vlad renounces God and stabs the cross with his sword. It bleeds and he drinks from the blood. I guess this is how Vlad becomes a vampire. (Did this happen in Stoker's book? I doubt it) In the present, which turns out to be the 19th century, Dracula sends for an attorney from London, Jonathan Harker. Harker is to finish closing a real estate deal with Count Dracula. The man that began the deal, Renfield returned to England a madman. He is locked up in asylum, overseen by Dr. Seward. Renfield rants about the "Master" (kinda like Torgo...only MST3K fans would get that) and eats bugs in his cell. Harker travels to Transylvannia and meets Dracula at his castle. But it becomes apparent to him a lot later than it would for most other humans, that he is to be kept a prisoner!

Now, I have absolutely no idea why Harker is held as Dracula's (Vlad) prisoner. I suppose it could be because Dracula sees the picture of Harker's fiancée, Mina. Mina is a spitting image of Drac's lost love, Elizabetha. I guess Drac believes in reincarnation. Because Harker is given to Drac's vampire ho's and Drac sets off for England.

While all this is going on we find that Mina is staying with her rich friend, Lucy. Lucy has a few suitors, Dr. Seward, Quincy and Arthur. Lucy finally decides to marry Arthur. I can see that. Seward is a morphine addict, Quincy is an American cowboy and Arthur is stuffy and English. When Dracula arrives in London, he goes after Lucy. He becomes a man-wolf and does the nasty with her in the garden. This makes Lucy a bit nutty afterwards. She's becoming a vampire. Dracula also pursues Mina. This Dracula can change his form. When he met with Harker in the castle he was an old man...a strange looking old man, but old nonetheless. But when he meets with Mina in London he is a young man. With Harker missing and not heard from for awhile, Mina begins to fall in love with "Prince Vlad", a charming foreigner.

Lucy becomes more and more weird and falls ill. Dr. Seward tries to help her, but is dumbfounded. So he calls for his former teacher and colleague, Dr. Abraham Van Helsing. Van Helsing is a kind of crazy old mad scientist and deduces that Lucy's problem is caused by a vampire! He gets the others to believe him eventually. Meanwhile Harker escapes Dracula's castle and makes it to a monastery. He sends word back to London and Mina rushes off to be with him. They get married when she arrives in Romania and even though she misses Prince Vlad, Mina writes him and tells him that since she's marrying Harker they can't see each other anymore. Dracula is enraged. He goes to Lucy's home at night and attacks her. This kills Lucy. Van Helsing, Seward, Quincy and Jack go to her crypt after the funeral to make sure that she does not rise as a vampire. The others are skeptical (which is suprising...Dracula had to go through Quincy and Arthur to get to Lucy) but they follow Van Helsing. They find her coffin empty, but just as they do that, Lucy returns carrying a small child. Van Helsing forces her back into her coffin with a cross and they destroy her by cutting off her head and putting a stake through her heart.

Harker and Mina return to London and learn of what has happened. Van Helsing talks to Harker and is determined to destroy Dracula. Van Helsing and his posses learn from Harker where Dracula resides in London. (Because Harker closed the real estate deal) They destroy all of the crates of transylvannian soil and stuff. (Because a vampire has to sleep in the earth of his homeland) Dracula flees and goes to where Mina is sleeping. As Prince Vlad, he tells Mina who and what he really is. Mina wants to be with him and he lets her begin to drink his blood...which will turn her into a vampire. But Vlad changes his mind...he can't condemn Mina to his undead existence. Just then Van Helsing and the boys arrive. They try to destroy Dracula but the vampire escapes. Then the great chase begins.

Van Helsing and company know that Dracula has no resting place in England anymore so he must return to Transylvannia. They try to cut him off but Dracula is mentally connected to Mina and knows what they are doing. In order to throw him off of their plans, Van Helsing and Mina separate from the others in Romania. This doesn't help much, since they all end up at castle Dracula anyway, around the same time. Oh, yes, Dracula's vampire woman and gypsy servants try to defeat our heroes but they still make it. The men attack Dracula, wounding him. But Mina refuses to let them kill him. Being the reincarnation of Elizabetha she loves Dracula. She drags his wounded body into the castle and when Dracula asks her to free him of his vampire existence, she does so. She drives his sword into his heart and then cuts his head off. Dracula is destroyed.

Yeah, he's destroyed, but why? Maybe I'm a little confused because I don't go for all of that reincarnation guff. This movie tried to make Dracula as a sympathetic character, but that doesn't work for me. You mean that Dracula, the Prince of Darkness, Lord of the Undead, the ultimate and most powerful of all vampires has wreaked havoc (well, supposedly....in this movie he only attacks a small group of people) for centuries because he's looking for the reincarnation of his dead wife? Right. Dracula is supposed to be evil! This Dracula didn't seem evil, just kind of mean. So this movie didn't scare me at all. I also really actually never gave a single [unwrite] about any of the characters. This movie has what makes most big budget movies crappy. A big budget, a "famous" cast but a boring script that has no meat in it. Winona Ryder was okay as Mina, and I have nothing against Ms. Ryder, but I wasn't terribly impressed with her in this movie. Keanu Reeves has the charisma of a cinderblock. As Harker he sounded phony and just plain sucked. Anthony Hopkins as Van Helsing was okay. Gary Oldman is good actor, and I can't fault his performance, but I think he was wasted here as Dracula. As I said earlier, I didn't actually begin to care about ANY of the characters so I don't even know if the other people in this movie are known actors or not.

Best Lines: "Yeah, she was in great pain, then we cut off her head, and drove a stake through her heart and burned it and then she found peace."- Van Hesling's less than tactful response to Mina's question of whether or not Lucy was in pain.

1.) What's with the funky all red imperial stormtrooper space armor Dracula is wearing at the beginning of this movie? It looks like a reject costume from a cheap sci-fi movie. There is no freaking way I'm going to believe that armor like that was made in whenever the hell this war took place.

2.) Elizabetha jumps out of window and falls several HUNDRED feet to her death. Yet her body looks remarkably unbruised. Now, I've never actually seen a body of someone who has fallen from a great height, but my guess is it would be a little more messed up. Elizabetha is just a little wet from the river and has a little Captain Kirk-like trickle of blood on her lip.

3.) I never realized this before, but Keanu Reeves really SUCKS. He's about as interesting to watch as a block of wood. This doesn't help his character, Harker. Harker's not altogether too bright. If I was supposed to meet someone in a weird ass country in the middle of the night I sure wouldn't have gotten into that stagecoach of the damned that  came to Harker up. I damn sure would have made a hasty retreat when the coach passed through the crazy ass blue flame forcefield at Dracula's castle. But Harker seems to take it all in stride. Dumbass. If he can't tell that something is amiss at this time its a wonder that he can tie his own shoes.

4.) Arthur is guarding Lucy in her room while Quincy patrols outside. they're on the lookout for Dracula, a superstrong vampire dude with kick ass powers. But Arthur is drinking what looks like bourbon or brandy as he sits there with his pistol by Lucy's bed. He eventually falls asleep. Does this seem smart? Would you decide to down a few cold beers while guarding your loved one from a bloodthirsty undead maniac? (Mmmmmm....cold beer.....the Homer Simpson in me is coming out.)

NUDITY AND SEX: Lucy's boobs are seen. The vampire woman are half nude and there's a scene where you can almost see Winona Ryder's boobs while she's in a nightgown.

HUH?: Lucy says early in the film that she's only twenty. Okay. So where are her parents. Yeah, she's more than old enough to be living on her own, but why is Arthur looking after her medical needs? In HER house? Doesn't she have a mother or father? Any siblings? I understand she could be an only child and perhaps her parents died tragically leaving her all of their fabulous wealth, but I wish they'd at least have said that.

Van Helsing and friends burst in on Dracula while he is seducing Mina and have definite resolve in destroying him. they don't even back down when Dracula becomes a Man-Bat. Harker tries to shoot him. But when Drac turns into about five dozen or so rats that flee the room these bozos are too shocked to stop the rats? Shoot 'em! Stomp on them! I don't know how well it would work but maybe if you killed enough of them Dracula would be destroyed too! These guys react like a bunch of scared women! (Which I understand...that ain't a normal sight!) But they already seen him become a fearsome Man-Bat! That's a helluva lot more unnerving than some stinking rats!

My estimation of Dracula's brains came down a notch! Why is does he even bother with Lucy if Mina is his objective? If he had left Lucy alone, Seward would never have contacted Van Helsing and NO ONE would know of Dracula's involvement! The idea that he needs blood won't answer that? He's in London, for God's sake! There's plenty of people to get blood from! Plus how could he lose to Van Helsing and crew anyway? He has a lot more powers than he does weaknesses. Lets see, he can only be killed by the stake through the heart, etc. Crosses may make him back off, but he set Van Helsing's cross on fire by thinking about it! He beat up Quincy and Jack with what looked like telekinesis! He can turn into a mist, according to Van Helsing, and we see him become a Man-Bat, a Man-wolf, and a [unwrite]load of rats! Add to all that he can control vermin! This guy loses to a bunch of jerks? Only because he didn't use a smidgen of common sense while doing anything! If I was Dracula I'd have had Mina back in Transylvannia as my vampire hellbitch ho inside of a week!

THE TALLY: I'm not a fan of this movie, but if you haven't seen it you may want to. A lot of people liked it, and I think its a matter of taste. I can't call it a bad movie. But I sure don't want to watch it again. Seek other vampire movies if you're looking for a scare.