Definitely not Bram Stoker's Dracula

Rating: Null/10 (16 October 2002)

Don't be fooled by the title of this film. It claims to be the definitive Dracula, but it is very far removed from the original novel's tone and style. Sure, the characters have the same names and the plot is mostly the same, but the crucial mistake the screenwriter made was trying to turn this horror thriller into a love story. The result is grotesque and absolutely off-putting. Instead of being wickedly seductive and menacing, this Dracula is a whiner, constantly bawling about his lost love and staring at her pathetically with a hangdog expression. Maybe this would have worked, if Mina had not reciprocated (heaven knows why) the monster's feelings. Then his lust for her would truly have been terrifying, because he would want to turn her into a vampire against her will. But this Dracula swears he will never harm her, which immediately and proposterously takes all the menace out of the film. Unlike the novel, none of the characters in the film is sympathetic, except THE WRONG ONE (ie the villain)! Why don't they just all get on with it and die in the mass orgy the director seems to think they want? Jonathan is a stiff, Seward is himself a psychotic, Van Helsing is a pervert and Quincey and Arthur's roles are almost non-existent. And this film perversely propagates a stereotype of women that is stuck in some chauvinist's wet dream. From the start, which does not fit in at all with a Victorian sensibility, Mina and Lucy act like two libidinous nymphomaniacs just waiting to burst out of their corsets, as if women are just all hanging around, waiting for some wierd wolf-monster to "liberate" them. Everything about this film is excessive, over the top and absurd: the acting, the special effects, the cinematogrophy. I guess there'll never be a film true to the novel, since this film doesn't reference the novel, but the hundreds of vampire films that have gone before it. If you want to groan as another character screams maniacally (oh, I forgot, this is the measure of good acting these days) or laugh at a supposed romantic moment, then by all means, watch this film, excruciating for all the wrong reasons. 2 out of 5.