What a difference the Director's Cut made!

Rating: Null/10 (24 December 2000)

When I saw this movie in the theatrical and then the first video release, it was good, but not great. There was a lack of focus and the central idea of the enduring love between Prince Vlad and his lost Elizabeta was never fully developed. The movie, frankly, left me a bit cold and I paid no attention to it when it appeared on satellite programming for the next couple of years. Then I happened to watch it again about two years ago and was stunned to find that it seemed a completely different film. Fortunately I had taped the earlier version and was able to compare it with what I had just seen. The version currently being shown is most definitely a re-cut. There are a couple of new scenes, but only a couple and I don't think the lengths of the two versions differ by more than a few seconds, but the re-cut is a much better movie - one where the full impact of the story comes through. I am surprized that the IMDB does not list this re-cut in their Alternate Visions category, but it is most definitely out there and I can only think that, with the vast improvement in the coherence of the movie, this has to be a Director's Cut. As such, it takes a good movie and makes it one of Coppola's finest efforts with an underlying pathos for the title character trapped in an existance of his own creation, horrified by what he has become yet willing to accept that horror if it allows him a chance to redeem his lost love.