WES CRAVEN PRESENTS DRACULA 2000 A film review by Steve Rhodes Copyright 2001 Steve Rhodes RATING (0 TO ****): *
Even if WES CRAVEN PRESENTS DRACULA 2000 -- what a modest title -- features the undead, the movie itself is completely and utterly dead. Without a scintilla of new ideas, it rehashes the Dracula legend. You know the drill. The guy is a woman's man, who prowls at night and gets a major heartburn when silver stakes are thrust into his chest. His love bites are quite messy, spurting blood everywhere. Once bitten, however, the victim joins his little club and goes off to put hickeys on other necks. About the only variation in DRACULA 2000 is that chopping off the head of a vampire is said to work just as well as the old stake-in-the-heart routine. Then again, maybe this has always been a lesser know rule of devamping.
The film, scripted by Joel Soisson and directed by Patrick Lussier, features a group of B-list actors and B-list actor wannabes. Only Christopher Plummer (THE SOUND OF MUSIC), who phones in his performance, gives the movie anything even approaching credibility.
Any movie pretentious enough to include the year of the millennium in its title should be smart enough to include a fair amount of self-deprecating humor, as did GODZILLA 2000. DRACULA 2000, however, with its buckets of fake blood, still takes itself completely seriously. Neither a comedy nor a horror picture, DRACULA 2000 plays more like a bad industrial video for vampire exterminators. It is certainly about as much fun as an instructional video, which is to say, no fun whatsoever.
If there is anything worth laughing at in the story it is the stunning level of stupidity of the characters. If you came upon a locked tomb decorated by skulls, would you want to crack open the coffin inside to see what it contained? Solina (Jennifer Esposito) does. After all, she reasons, "If it's worth locking up, it's worth taking." Here is something worth taking. Take my advice. Don't come anywhere near this comatose picture. But if you think that this genre is hopeless, rent a copy of Larry Fessenden's HABIT. Now, that is a fascinating vampire film with some real imagination.
WES CRAVEN PRESENTS DRACULA 2000 runs a very long 2:07. It is rated R for violence/gore, language and some sexuality and would be acceptable for older teenagers.
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