EssenceStory Well Deserved Praise

Inadvands Boring, over-political, tech fuzed mess

Breakinger A Brilliant Conflict

Brennan Camacho Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

parsonm2 It took me a while to obtain a copy of this film but I'm glad I did. If you like any of the classic Hammer style Dracula films, you will enjoy this very much.There may be some who criticize this film from deviating slightly from the original story as in the Francis Ford Coppola version but I find it a refreshing and ambitious period film. The scenery, dress, effects, and locations are perfectly suitable the music was also suitably appropriate. Any director who boldly attempts a period Dracula piece has there work cut out for them. I actually found all the characters (even the townsfolk) slightly interesting to some degree which is something I can't say for most horror movies. Even the part of Van Helsing was well done, I enjoyed how Van Helsing was played as a quiet man of few words.This work has some sex and nudity but all of which was suitably appropriate for the scenes.I'd rate this film just slightly under the Coppola Version but still well worth watching.

karmaswimswami "Argento's Dracula" is at the arch extreme of the kinds of Dracula movies out there. One can have the exquisite Werner Herzog version with Klaus Kinski and partially filmed at Romania's Castle Bran that wrings extraordinary meaning from Stoker's story. Or Coppola's sumptuous, chromatic, limpid, lushly-told account with fine acting and HIV metaphors. Argento's auteur version is the badly-lit community theater rendition where the script often makes little sense, the acting is ham-fisted, the lighting garish (what's with the yellow gels?), and where when the storyline lags as it often does, the director tries to salvage it by having an actress bare breasts or calling for something quite hemorrhagic to happen. One keeps hoping this film might rise/fall to the level of being appealingly appalling, but it remains merely risible and dismal and hackneyed. With a performance from the otherwise capable Rutger Hauer that should be struck from his resume. Two stars from me merely because there are transient moments of actual beauty to which Argento is not oblivious.

Stachehunter-857-73111 "Suspiria", this ain't.Why Dario Argento attempted to make the one millionth version of "Dracula" is probably the most puzzling thing about this truly terrible version of Bram Stoker's undying novel. By this time, who cares about the Count, anyway? The poor guy has been invoked and re-imagined so many times it's nothing but sad anymore. Argento evidently wanted his shot at the venerable story, but the result is a hot mess that can't even qualify as a cult movie, despite the fact that late in the movie, Dracula turns himself into a giant deadly mantis to kill another extra who didn't know he needed to call Orkin.The entire movie is shot under incredibly bright light, making even the night scenes looks as if everyone's going to hit the beach as soon as the director yells "cut". This is Transylvania/California. The story is a precariously balanced retread of the superior "Horror of Dracula", Hammer Films breakthrough in Technicolor vampirism that shook the world in 1958. Here, Argento wastes film in a weak copy of the Hammer visual style, reducing the original 1958 color palette of rich autumn hues to something you'd see on the Vegas strip. Hammer's heaving bosoms are now in full view, jiggling all over the place. The subtle eroticism of the 58' version is now stroke magazine fodder. Most damnably, Argento attempts to recreate the seminal scene in which Harker is attacked by Dracula's bride. Instead of the shock of Christopher Lee's red-eyed Count knocking the hell out of the bride, we get T and A and the worst pretend Dracula ever seen, the lousy Thomas Kretschmann in a Z-list sleepwalk performance of one of the world's greatest villains. Oh yeah, he's also blond. Surf's up, Drac!And so on. We get a seriously truncated version of the original story. Dracula never goes to England. Somehow, all the characters come to him. No hunting necessary. Within ten minutes of the movie's start, we get soft-core porn involving a buff gymrat and a Hustler Honey banging in a barn. Dracula is not only a weak player, but also a very bad CGI owl, werewolf thingy, and again, a giant praying mantis. Who knew? Rutger Hauer shows up late in the game as Van Helsing, gets knocked around for his trouble and Mina shoots the Count, who turns into an ashy replica of himself before blowing up real good.For Dracula completists only, and even then, on fast-forward. Really, it's that bad.

ASouthernHorrorFan Dario Argento's "Dracula 3D" sets a tone for the next generation of Argento fans that is a mildly flat sound quizzical sadness. The film was heralded as the great horror master's return but proves to be anything more than the standard absurdity that quite frankly Dario Argento's work has always been seen as by me. That sounds really bad and may make me seem like a horrible horror fan but in all honestly Dario's films have never been top shelf cinematic gold, the films have maintained a basic over-the-top, ridiculousness that seemed more tongue-in-cheek, grandeur. Which is really what I always loved about his films. If I wanted to watch serious, grounded horror I would always turn to the more mature horror styles like Fulci or America's own John Carpenter, both of whom maintain a classic balance of dark situation with a black satirical subtext. Argento is awesome because of the simple fact that his films have always been anything but serious attempts at horror storytelling. Which is no different in his revision of "Dracula 3D". As a kid I reacted much the same way over his classic heralded films "Trauma" and "Suspiria" with the same wide-eyed, confusion that I experienced watching "Dracula 3D". Okay so "Dracula 3D" carried the absurdity a bit further but not by much more than is his normal amount of off-beat, illogical vision of theatrics. "Dracula 3D" offers a blended story that seems part classic Dracula lore mixed with Hammer's own mythos for the Prince of Darkness. There is an obvious lackadaisical approach to Dracula story that begins almost in the middle, forcing the viewer to stay focused on this particular retelling of Bram's story. There isn't much that is recognizable and I found myself having to remind myself that I was watching "Dracula" because there is almost nothing other than the names that resembles the classic tale and the film shows more of a Hammer Film's influence than Bram Stoker. It is a bit cumbersome in creating an instant connection with the film and the characters but I found myself very captivated by this story that almost made for an original counter-piece. The characters fall short of actualizing into multifaceted personas but I have always found that to be the case with Argento's characters. The emotion and interactions to the situations his characters often face have always seemed sterile and robotic. It does very little to disconnect me completely from "Dracula 3D" much as the characters in his previous material have not keep me from getting into the films. To me this is one component that makes Dario Argento's style so Dario Argento. Either you like his film and style or you don't. The fact that his style of telling a story is often so overtly bad is what I like about his films. The special effects and sound effects in "Dracula 3D" are borderline terrible. Mostly the effects, they offer more visual spectacle akin to SyFy or below B-movie quality than one would expect from Argento with this caliber of film. Plus the 3D tricks are subpar or mediocre at best. So that was a bit of a downer, even for such a liberal horror fan as I am. I personally don't get the whole 3D schtick, wasn't impressed with it as a kid and even with today's new technology I still am not impressed with it. So that instant dismissal of the 3D gimmick in "Dracula 3D" has no baring in my review of this film. The special effects though is another matter. It was far too cheap to overlook. The sound effects and musical score for the film seems pretty cool, offering an expected creepy, haunting feeling that you would expect in a Dracula or film like this. For me, "Dracuala 3D" is standard Argento level story telling, take that as good or bad. This film is plenty bad and on the cultish, bad movie level there is plenty that will make the film good, at least for those of us who have no decades built delusion that Dario Argento's work has been anything but bad, tacky awesomely fun cinema wasteland viewing. "Dracula 3D" is a film that, if you are only looking for some tongue-in-cheek, WTF film fun, you may enjoy- I did. However if you only have room for serious horror stories and films that take the Dracula material straight forward then definitely skip this film because it is more laughable than entertaining on that level-but then why would you really be watching a Dario Argento film anyway?!