Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Adeel Hail Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

zardoz-13 The BBC's Masterpiece Theatre, "Beautiful Creatures" director Bill Eagles, and "Jericho" television scribe Stewart Harcourt have appropriated Bram Stoker's immortal vampire tale "Dracula" and given it more than a few usual twists. Indeed, their adaptation is about as far out as you can imagine. I've seen virtually every version of "Dracula," and this concise but irreverent 90-minute epic takes incredible liberties that not even Bram Stoker might have if he could come back from the grave. Mind you, the producers shed more light on the early part of the story involving Jonathan Harker and his fiancée Mina Murry. Nevertheless, they have tampered considerably with the text (what brought Dracula to London) as well as ushered in some new characters, chiefly Alfred Singleton who leads a religious blood cult. These guys are so afraid of publicity that he kill anybody who they come into contact with. Meaning, they are a small bunch of fiends. One of Stoker's character, Arthur Holmwood takes on new dimensions with a larger part in the narrative. As unusual as "Dracula" remains, Eagles does a good job of shoehorning some the basics in this made-for-television story. Chiefly, Eagles and his hawks have sent Renfield, Quincy Morris, the vampire wenches, and the gypsies packing. Marc Warren is neither like Bela Lugosi or Christopher Lee. The best line that he utters is: "I only go where I am desired and while I am invited in." The scene when Dracula materializes in the bedroom and has sex with Lucy in the same bed that her fully clothed husband is sleeping in a hand's width away is rather risqué. Traditional "Dracula" fans may strongly take issue with this reimagination of the character.

kriitikko In 1977 BBC produced three hours long "Count Dracula", a very faithful and one of the best adaptations of Bram Stoker's classic vampire story. In 2006 BBC excited fans by releasing a new version of the same book, this time directed by Bill Eagles. Sadly, this one doesn't come anywhere near the 1977 versions quality.Set in the 1899 Victorian England, Lord Arthur Holmwood (Dan Stevens) has just proposed the girl of his dreams, Lucy Westenra (Sophia Myles), when he finds out that his father has died of syphilis that he had for number of years. The disease has been passed to Arthur, who decides to keep it a secret and in desperation turns to Alfred Singleton (Donald Sumpter), a leader of a strange cult, who promises that Arthur can be cured, if he finances a strange Romanian noble man Count Dracula (Marc Warren) to England. Arthur arranges Jonathan Harker (Rafe Spall) to travel to Transylvania and make the deal with the Count. Jonathan's fiancée Mina Murray (Stephanie Leonidas) stays with Lucy until his return.Technically this film is typical BBC quality work with beautiful sets, colorful sceneries and music fit to the scenes. However, that alone is not enough to save this mess. What's with the plot? I understand that Stoker's book is not the most easiest thing to film and people want to add new things to the story, but Stoker's book has never had a truly faithful adaptation, so why such huge changes? Not only does the plot have more than enough for one film, the events go with such an incredible speed that it is easy to loose your track here. The entire sequence with Jonathan and Dracula in the Castle, one of the most important parts of the story, is over so fast, that if I had briefly gone to a toilet I would have missed it. Now, there are some parts from Stoker's book, like the shipwreck and Lucy's death, and the film tries to keep the themes from the book, the Victorian era morality, dangers of affairs and Catholicism. However, even those themes seem to get lost in this film.One of the biggest flaws is the way film presents most of its characters. The good natured and kind hearted Arthur has been turned to a desperate, almost menacing man who at times appears as a complete jerk. Lucy becomes so desperate for sex that she would have probably opened her legs to a gardener if Dracula hadn't come. Abraham Van Helsing has been lowered to a minor character who briefly appears towards the end of the movie. If that's not bad enough, he is played by talented David "Poirot" Suchet, who is completely wasted in this film. Dracula has also gone through a terrible change. While still in Castle and under a heavy makeup, Marc Warren actually makes him creepy and interesting. However, when he becomes young and goes to England, he merely appears as a bored playboy, poor man's Frank Langella, who doesn't have any chemistry with neither of the women (which makes Lucy's seduction scene ridiculous). Although I'm not fond of the more romantic version of Dracula in Coppola's film, at least Gary Oldman was interesting. Warren's Dracula doesn't appear neither as a seducer or a monster, he just is there.Dracula appears very little in this film and with all the other plots going around here, the film should not have been called "Dracula". Because all in all, this is a period-costume-drama film that just happens to have a vampire as one of the (minor) characters. If you haven't read the book or didn't like it, then this may be good film for you.

Michael_Elliott Dracula (2006) * (out of 4) Incredibly bad adaptation from Masterpiece Theatre. Before he gets married, a Lord (Dan Stevens) discovers that he has syphilis. The Lord is told that a man named Count Dracula (Marc Warren)) can get rid of the disease. Um, yeah. I'm really not sure where to start with this film but it's pretty much bad on all levels but it somewhat remains interesting just because of how bad it is. Dracula can stay out in the sunlight and drink wine here so good for him. The performances are all incredibly bad and rival a high school play. The direction is all over the place and it's quite clear the director didn't know how he wanted to tell the story. The film plays so fast it's like you're watching it with the FF button going full blast.

dani-colman The problem with making a film out of "Dracula" is that the book was pretty good to start with. Cinematically written, with well-measured pace changes, atmospheric description, three-dimensional characters and grand settings and vistas, it should transcribe perfectly to the screen. And, given the BBC's skill with period pieces and adaptations of classics (I mean, look at Pride and Prejudice), it should have transcribed perfectly. As far as I can see, the best explanation for its failure is that the creators didn't actually bother to read the book.Written in large letters on the BBC's "Dracula" website are the words "Returning to the original novel for his inspiration, Stewart Harcourt's script draws both on elements of Bram Stoker's own life and Victorian society to give this version of the vampire classic a new, modern sensibility." Nice sentiment, but complete drivel. Harcourt seems instead to believe that throwing in trivial details from the original text (Dracula's "youthening", the Count's ability to walk in sunlight) grants him licence to ignore the original plot. It doesn't. The film begins decently enough (the first of the many syphilis references notwithstanding - I'll get to those later), but Jonathan Harker's death early on is more than enough to give the lie to the BBC's grand statement on its website.And the syphilis. It seems to be the bounden duty of every pseudo-intellectual Dracula reader to insist that Bram Stoker was himself suffering from the disease when he wrote the book. In this adaptation that little shred of a hypothesis is blown up to cosmic proportions, and, while it's a nice way of saying "look at how educated we are", it doesn't stand up to the inflation, and it just doesn't work to hang an entire plot on it. Besides that, the simple fact of the matter is that Bram Stoker never did contract syphilis*, so the attempt at intellectualism is wasted.It's okay to change plots if you have to. Disney does it to make classic stories more child- friendly. The National Theatre did it to make Northern Lights more adaptable to the stage. But to rip a classic and originally compelling story to shreds, piece it back together in the wrong order like some gross literary Frankenstein's monster, and then claim that the adaptation returns to the material of the original book...well, frankly that's just false advertising.*The claim that Bram Stoker suffered from syphilis is based on the assertion of a single biographer that he died of "locomotor ataxy", a disease which, while occasionally associated with syphilis, has never been conclusively shown to be the same thing. Locomotor ataxy was certainly not recognised as an STD, which renders conclusively useless any theories that Stoker wrote Dracula as a commentary on syphilis and its associations with promiscuity or sexual deviance.