Dracula 2000 (2000)

Hey guys...Im going to be sending reviews again in email, but I am not going to have a website of my own, instead you can read my reviews here: The Movie Insider or here: reviews by Brandon Herring.I have a new format, but my writing is going to stay the same. ~Brandon

Dracula 2000 * * out of * * * * Directed by: Patrick Lussier Running Time: 97 Minutes Rated R: strong vampire violence, gore, sexuality, language, bried nudity. Cast: Gerard Butler, Christopher Plummer, Jonny Lee Miller, Justine Waddell, Colleen Fitzpatrick (aka 'Vitamin C'), Danny Masterson, Jeri Ryan, Jennifer Esposito, Lochlyn Munro, Omar Epps, Sean Patrick Thomas.

In 1922 an original, and very scary film came out called "Nosferatu"...he was the first image of a character of Dracula...and now almost eighty years later Dracula is resurrected to the big screen once again in this mind-numbing effort from first time director Patrick Lussier, who is Wes Craven's editor. This is the billionth Dracula film ever made, and to me it seems the more they make them, the worse they make them.

The last good Dracula film (actually the last Dracula film) was 1992's lavishly made "Bram Stoker's Dracula" which gained critical and audience raves, and made a ton of money at the box office. Sixty years before that was the movie that made Bela Lugosi popular and that was "Dracula". This year we get a new Dracula film for a new generation.

"Dracula 2000" opens with an interesting montage of scenes from a ship years ago, with dead and bloody people on the ship, obviously attacked by some creature. We then shoot to London, England 2000 where we meet Simon (Jonny Lee Miller) and his father like figure Abraham Van Hesling (Christopher Plummer). They run a museum with a very special exhibit locked away deep inside a vault. When the vault is robbed of it's exhibit, Abraham reveals what was locked away in this vault: Dracula himself...now he is on the loose in modern day London.

Meanwhile Mary (Justine Waddell) is having visual nightmares of a black haired man who haunts her in her dreams, he stalks her, finds her, and then disappears as she wakes up. Her friend Lucy (Colleen Fitzpatrick) thinks she is just lacking sleep, but Mary knows something is wrong, something deep down, something in her family. After Abraham reveals yet another shocking secret, he and Simon must find Mary and save her from Dracula, before it's too late, whilst Dracula stalks around town, making even more vampires appear in the town.

Wes Craven's lead editor Patrick Lussier clocks in his directorial debut (although he directed last years direct to video "The Prophecy III") and he does a good enough job keeping the film on it's heels, but somewhere towards the fourty-minute mark the film takes a turn and starts to get oddly confusing, and the rest of the film I was so confused I had to ask my friend what just happened, he couldn't answer my questions, for he was as confused as I was.

Lussier seems to want to make more of an action film, than a hardcore Vampire film, in the ending climax "The Matrix" technique using slow-motion while showing the trail of a bullet is excessively overused, and gets really old, really fast. The acting on the other hand is very well done with Justine Waddell clocking in a grat performace as the lead woman Mary, Christopher Plummer and Jonny Lee Miller are great as well, and the rest of the supporting cast with Jennifer Esposito (who is as beautiful as she is talented) is the stand-out in the supporting cast.

Lussier also wrote and edited the film, which only one he did successfully, the writing is not that good at all, and this film I can safely say has a terrible script, with some bad dialogue and bad jokes, however the editing is fantastic and Lussier seems to be able to do at least one thing good. Overall Dracula 2000 is a so-so horror film, that isn't scary at all, but seemed to keep my attention throughout it's short runtime of 97 minutes. See it with caution, and don't expect to see too much.

Reviewed by Brandon Herring 12/22/00.