Review of Dracula II: Ascension (2003) by Philip J — 18 Mar 2012

A group of young medical students come across a mysterious corpse that is very much burned beyond recognition. But this is no ordinary body. While examining the body, one of the students, Elizabeth Blaine (Diane Neal) accidentally pricks her finger on a fang that suddenly grows out of the corpse's mouth. Based on this as well as other circumstantial evidence, the students believe that this is not an ordinary human body, but rather . . . a vampire. The students decide that this "vampire" is worth the time to do some experiments on to determine whether they can discover the key to immortality and the like...

Leading the study is Professor Lowell (Craig Sheffer), the boyfriend of Elizabeth, and who is currently confined to a wheelchair due to cerebral palsy. Perhaps, this vampire corpse may be the key which leads to a cure not only for Lowell's sickness, but for all of mankind's illnesses. What they may discover in this vampire being could have the potential to make physical disease a thing of the past...

The students decide to "revive" the vampire, but little do they realize that once you start playing with fire, you can't extinguish the flames... The students discover that not only can this vampire come back to life; this vampire could very well be Dracula himself...

Father Uffizi (Jason Scott Lee) has been sent from the Vatican on a mission: to vanquish Dracula and his armies of darkness once and for all. But the only way to destroy Dracula is for Father Uffizi to grant him absolution. Because you see, Dracula in his previous life was the one and only Judas. (And please, don't ask me what this is all about -- I didn't write the story to this movie, I'm only reporting what I saw.).

Dracula II: Ascension is the much anticipated, long awaited sequel to Dracula 2000. Okay, I admit it . . . I'm outright lying. How many of you have even heard of, let alone seen, Dracula 2000? If you have heard or seen this movie, please raise your hands. I thought so...

The problem with Dracula II: Ascension is that it's both poorly written and very lethargic. We are never emotionally invested in these characters, with the possible exception of Father Uffizi. We don't really care about the characters' fates and quite frankly, the longer we watch this movie, the more we simply want to get it over with. The production values are outright cheap. The majority of the movie looks like it was filmed in an abandoned building. This film doesn't really have much atmosphere to spare either. Basically, this movie is a chore to watch. I would say that there is some decent gore in this film. This film has a fairly cool double decapitation sequence as well as numerous other beheadings. There is an insane bloodbath scene where a bathtub of blood revives Dracula and the usual chaos ensues. Finally, there is a rather gruesome moment where Dracula rips off a victim's face. The poor victim comes back to life and you see a close-up of the inside of his face in gory detail as he attacks the remaining survivors.

Jason Scott Lee (best known for his memorable performance as Bruce Lee in Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story) does a decent job and plays a credible lead hero. I like that there was some effort made to have Uffizi not an outright hero, but not a complete antihero either. The twist with his character is that Uffizi himself has been infected by the vampire curse and each day, he exposes himself to the sun, screaming in agony as his skin burns in hopes that the sunlight may get rid of his vampire curse. But he is never completely successful and each day, he struggles not to succumb to this curse. As for the rest of the cast, I really just didn't care about their performances. While I think the majority of them tried very hard to make the best out of this low-budget and boring movie, I get the sense that most of the actors are doing this simply for the paycheck and are trying to get this done and over with. You'll also notice that Roy Scheider's name is fairly prominent in the film's promotional advertising, but his cameo appearance lasts for a laughable five minutes at most.

Dracula II: Ascension is ultimately hampered by its extremely low budget and crude production. Despite the sincere efforts of both the cast and the crew, Dracula II: Ascension is simply unable to overcome its limitations. To be frank, this film is not really enjoyable even for cheap thrills. Just skip this one. Besides, I doubt you'll even come across this movie unless you're actively seeking this one out...