Parked Review
Review“And may I say that Miss Lucy is hotter than a June bride riding bareback buck naked in the middle of the Sahara!” – QuinceyShould I even have to do a plot outline? In 14th-century Transylvania a nobleman named Vlad Dracula (Gary Oldman) of the Order of the Dragon sets out to do battle with the invading Turkish army. Facing overwhelming odds Vlad decides to wear a rather funky set of armour, which looked all sci-fi to this colonial. Anyways, Vlad and his army proceed to kick Turkish butt from here to eternity. Vlad returns home to hopefully the arms of his adoring wife, but alas some Turkish wags have fired an arrow over the Dracula Castle wall informing the wife that Vlad died in battle. Unwilling to face the fact that Vlad might not have been wearing clean underwear under that armour, his missus throws herself off the castle walls and into the river flowing below. Thus we have on dead Countess, and one pissed-off Count. Vlad goes slightly hysterical on receiving the news about his wife. He renounces Christ and God; vows to return from the grave, drinks some blood that miraculously flows from one big arsed cross he stabbed a sword into, and hires Foxtel for the reality TV shows. Well okay, he doesn’t hire Fox, but you get what I mean: Drac is doing all sorts of evil stuff.
Flash forward four centuries, and Jonathan Harker (Keanu Reeves) arrives at Castle Dracula. Harker is finishing the contracts for some houses in London,
with the castle’s owner, one Vlad Dracula. Yep, same dude, and only slightly aged due to not using facial-care products. Anyways, Harker ends up trapped
at the castle, and beset on all sides by Depending on viewpoint, Coppola’s visualisation of Bram Stoker’s famed novel is either the best ever adaptation, or one that complete misses driving in the stake. I’m of the former opinion, though I actually prefer the version Britain’s Hammer Studios did in 1958, the one with Peter Cushing as Van Helsing. [Editor’s note: the 1958 version is also memorable for Christopher Lee’s inspired performance as the infamous Count. We really do need to check into Hammer’s back catalogue.] Regardless of my personal preferences, I still thoroughly enjoyed Coppola’s version, although it did have a couple of weak points which I’ll get to later in the review, children of the night. By and large, writer James V Hart follows Stoker’s original novel, and includes all the major scenes, but this time around Hart is amping the underlying sexual nature of the vampire which Stoker only alludes to. Stoker would of course have been constrained by the morals of the time, or perhaps completely missed this aspect of the mythology. Going to sidetrack here for a couple of minutes and then we’ll get back on track. Hammer dominated the vampire output through the 1960s, and in particular movies revolving around Count Dracula. Fellow Brit horror hounds Amicus Studios also got into the act, but by and large the U.S. studios left the concept alone. The U.S. had of course been the first to go major with a movie based around Dracula with the 1931 Bela Lugosi movie simply called Dracula. [Editor’s note: the Germans were the first out of the crypt with a vampire film, 1922’s Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens, an impressionist masterpiece]. With the demise of Hammer and Amicus in the early 1980s, the way was clear for North American studios to release a whole slew of vampire-related movies in the 1980s and early 1990s (there’s possibly a collective noun for these films, but I’ll just go with a “suck” of vampire movies). Coppola’s movie was the best of the bunch aiming to reinterpret the classic story. There are some real dogs when it comes to the sub-genre. Okay, now that we’ve all had our history lesson (spot quiz later), let’s get back to the sexual aspects of the show. Besides our introduction to three wanton vampire babes showing boobs galore, we get Lucy Westenra (Sadie Frost) showing off her love pillows and going orgasmic throughout. Frost simply shows one prolonged orgasm for much of her performance, which really brings to the fore the Count’s allure for countless women, (boom boom, I’ll get my hat and coat). Even Mina, whom Winnie portrays as being slightly stiff and formal, falls under the Count’s charms. During one climactic scene we are almost fooled into thinking Winona is going to pop out the boobs for our instant gratification. Mina states that she knows the attraction the Count has for her, after experiencing the Harker love missile on her wedding night. Can’t get much more graphic than that. And to ensure we get it, Coppola has some black and white porn playing on a projection screen in the drinking establishment where Mina meets the Count. It’s this overdone reliance on the eternal love story, and bringing the exotic sexual nature of Stoker’s novel to the fore which has turned many a horror fan off Coppola’s version of the story. Surprisingly, it also managed to get the movie out of the horror ghetto and onto the viewing schedule of many non-genre fans. And as fans we should all applaud a Director able to get a horror flick in front of those that wouldn’t normally spend a cent on a genre movie. This is going to be one hell of a long review folks, sorry for that. Coppola brings his full deck to the moviemaking card table with Dracula. He uses light and darkness to portray not only some freaky scenes, but to add a lot of atmosphere to proceedings as well. Loved the Count’s shadow, which had a life of its own. Great and very striking effect. In almost every scene Coppola is going for a money shot, and visually this film is a treat for all viewers. Possibly the best parallel I can draw to what Coppola has going down is some of Tim Burton’s gothic-looking outings. There’s that same realistic flavour, but slightly skew-whiff. The movie is reality seen through the eyes of someone slightly under the weather after drinking wine all afternoon. Where the film does fall down is with some of the cast choices. There are some great performances going down, but they are offset by some diabolically bad ones. Anthony Hopkins is superb as the slightly manic Van Helsing, and really makes the role his own. Best portrayal of Helsing since Peter Cushing nailed it. Equally, Gary Oldman is a deliciously decadent Count, when he wants to portray age he portrays age, when he wants to do youth, the same applies. Oldman dominates, and brings the Count fully to life for the audience. Winona Ryder (Mina) and Sadie Frost (Lucy) are on song, with Winnie in particular scoring a major with her character moving from prim and proper, to totally wanton. It’s with the male secondary actors that Dracula starts dragging the chain. Keanu Reeves (Harker) simply can’t act. He’s as wooden as a fence post, and if you think Kevin Costner did one terrible British accent in Robin Hood, wait till you hear Reeves torturing it to death. Cart Elwes (Lord Arthur Holmwood) is simply diabolically bad, but then again Elwes is always bad, how the hell he gets roles is beyond this poor excuse for a reviewer. And since I haven’t mentioned Bill Campbell’s Texas Cowboy Quincey, let’s leave it at that. If there was one thing that should have been jettisoned from the source novel it was this character. Due to the overwhelmingly superior aspect of Coppola’s moviemaking I dropped only a single point from the rating. End of day, the Director’s film is new, goes in different directions, and is a breath of fresh air in one of the most filmed stories we have been subjected to. Horror can be art; Coppola shows how to do that. Francis Ford Coppola has taken a staple of the horror genre and produced a film which is not only unique, but which completely reinterprets the source novel. Rather than simply retelling a story we’ve seen a dozen times before, Coppola goes with a single aspect of that story and raises its profile, while still covering bases with the major scenes of Stoker’s infamous penny dreadful. An outstanding achievement, in a genre which depends on cannibalising itself to a great extent. Interestingly Winona Ryder brought the script to Coppola’s attention, as it was originally intended to be a telly movie. This has been interpreted as an act of fence-mending between the two after Ryder declined a part in Godfather III. Coppola’s vision of Dracula earned $215,862,692 internationally on a budget of $40 million. It managed a 61% international split, which is surprising given the horror genre generally clears much more in U.S. domestic than International earnings. Bram Stoker’s Dracula is a triumph for the horror genre, and just goes to show what can be achieved when a Director puts his mind to stretching the boundaries of the genre. The movie is a must-watch experience for both horror fans and non-horror fans alike. Simply one of the best interpretations of the Dracula mythology ever to be made. If you are going to catch one vampire movie this year, then this one should be at the top of your list.
ScaryMinds Rates this movie as ... Coppola presents one of the best interpretations ever.
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