Creators of this film must have never read the book...

Rating: 1/10 (27 June 2000)

Having just finished reading Dracula, I was quite excited to see this film. After all, the movie includes the author's name so it must be true to the book, right? Wrong. The initial scene is false and far too silly. The evil "mysticism" of the book was far more subtle and, IMO, frightening than the boorish, bloody behavior of this introductory scene. Fine, whatever, bad first scene intended to draw in the usual horror fans. I can live with one bad introductory scene.
However, things did not improve. Renfield was a joke. Dracula hardly behaved as Dracula did in the book (suave, cool, well spoken), and Lucy was just plain ludicrous. Add (subtract?) the painful acting of Keanu Reaves and his british accent and you end up with an unbearable movie.
I'm not even going to *mention* Winona Ryder as Mina Harker...the mind boggles.
One final thing, though...what was with the shadows? Pfft.