Atmospheric quality and resemblance to old Hammer films make this a must see!

Fromclassicbookstofilm

This is not a faithful adaptation of Dracula and Dracula's Guest by Bram Stoker.Too many liberties taken with both stories.This adaptation has more in common with the Hammer Studio Dracula films.The actor playing Dracula is doing a better job on the new NBC miniseries Dracula as Van Helsing and that is not saying much since NBC has also taken too many liberties with the Stoker novel by adding in additional characters and subplots.Asia Argento is likable but lets face fact she is a little long in the tooth for the part of Lucy.Rutger Hauer's Van Helsing is a good portrayal.I didn't care for the staking of a child victim of Lucy's something that did not happen in the original novel.Dracula only has one bride in this version a peasant girl named Tanya whom he turned into a vampire in the guise of an owl instead of a bat.Dracula killing Lucy's father (she had a mother in the Stoker book) as a preying mantis.This version has Mina as the reincarnation of one of Dracula's royal wives a character from Dracula's Guest Countess Dolingen de Gratz.They never used reincarnation story lines in Dracula movies until 1973 when Dan Curtis had the Lucy character as an incarnation of Dracula's wife Maria and then you had Francis Ford Coppola's 1992 version Mina as an incarnation of Dracula's suicidal wife Elizabeta and now in the 2013 NBC you have Mina the incarnation of Dracula's murdered wife Ilona.Four things I appreciate about this version 1.I like the atmospheric quality it reminds me of the Hammer films I watched growing up.2.I appreciate that Dracula's Guest which was originally the lost chapter of Bram Stoker's Dracula has been incorporated into this version with some of it's characters.3. I appreciate that this version at least gives names of one of the brides of Dracula the brides names were never mentioned in the Stoker novel and actually in the historical Dracula only one of his wives was named because the names of his women his first wife a boyar's daughter and mistresses were lost to history.I hope that someone in the future can come up with a Dracula film that also could create some storyline for his wives.Like who were they to him (noble or royal wives or peasant girl mistresses).4.At least this version kept the Lucy,Jonathan,Mina,Van Helsing and Renfield characters.This film isn't the worse but it is far from the best! Best versions to see that follow the novel closely but not completely faithful the 1992 Gary Oldman ,1977 Louis Jourdan BBC version,the 1970 Christopher Lee version and to a lesser degree the 1973 Jack Palance version.If you want just good clean less faithful horror versions there is always the Hollywood Bela Lugosi 1931 and the 1958 Hammer films Christopher Lee version.

score 5/10

Fromclassicbookstofilm 2 November 2013

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2898476/