Review of Dracula 2000 (2000) by Carina C — 10 Dec 2007

Before you ever buy your ticket, take note that this movie is "Wes Craven Presents," not "A Wes Craven Film." As far as I can tell, Wes had very little to do with the movie other than lending his name to it, for which he gets an Executive Producer credit. Apparently if he hadn't, the movie would have been "Virgin Music Presents. . ." judging from all the product placement (though the chick fleeing a vampire and wearing a T-shirt that says "Virgin" across the front is kind of an amusing visual).

Here's the checklist of how Drac 2K managed the standard vampire movie stuff.

* Vampire Mythology.

This Dracula doesn't like holy stuff and silver, and they even tell you why in a secret origin of Drac that I haven't seen used before. Said secret origin was probably my favorite part of the movie, and is also the thing I'm guessing will turn the most people off.

* Vampire Hunters.

Van Helsing's just plain cool, but he'd be dead by now, right? Not if he's been shooting up Dracula's blood. Christopher Plummer was ok, but other than the fucked up accent he didn't really manage to be the scientific wildman Anthony Hopkins was in FFC's Dracula.

* Vampire Hunter Tricks and Gadgets.

Van Helsing's office is like something out of Bond, and the silver bullet tommy gun/knife combo was pretty neat, but otherwise nothing too spectacular here.

* Sexy, Sexy Vampire Babes.

They didn't do a bad job at all, here. Jerri Ryan, Jennifer Esposito, and some other chick.

* Babe Vampire Is Fixated On For No Apparent Reason.

They've got a cut-rate Sherlynn Fenn for this role, but Dracula 2000 departs from normal vamp movies by actually explaining why Drac's infatuated, which is kinda cool.

* Cool Vampires.

This is where things go to hell. As far as the happy band of vampire thugs, you've got Omar Epps wishing he was Wesley Snipes and the kid from Rosanne. Those are the high points. Dracula himself is some kind of White Wolf Lestat wannabe, and is obviously more impressed with himself than he has any right to be.

* Blood, Gore, and Severed Heads.

Decent, but nothing new and exciting.

* Weird Freaky Photography.

Unfortunately, they did some of this. You've got cameras moving through the crowd at fast forward and a chick being attacked by curtains. But there isn't too much of it, so it's survivable.

* Cool Vampire Stunts.

Lots of Matrix-style levitation, kicks, etc. The best in this category is the levitating sex scene.

* Cool One-Liners.

It's pretty light in this department, but "I never drink...cofee" and "Never, ever fuck with an antiques dealer" aren't bad.

* The Flat-Out Stupid.

By sheer coincidence, Mary (modern day Mina) has a best friend named Lucy. There's also a doctor named Seward. That's just dumb.

* Other Neat Bits.

When Drac gets out of the coffin and turns or kills everybody on the plane that's carrying him, he lashes the pilot to the controls, a la The Demeter. Ok, maybe it's dumb, but I thought it was sort of funny.

Overall: Go see it, but don't expect Wes Craven to redefine horror again, because he doesn't have anything to do with this. I rate it somewhere between John Carpenter's Vampires and The Lost Boys.