Dracula 3D Review

Movie: Dracula 3D
By: Maniac E
Date: March 29, 2013

Dracula or not Dracula?

Dario Argento finally is back with a new movie, this time it is all about vampires. You might think Argento is jumping the band wagon since the overload of vampire related series and movies. But you should see this more as a counter attack of Argento to try and bring back class to the vampires.

German actor Thomas Kretschmann plays Count Dracula as a stuffy and moody vampire who finds, in the form of fetching Mina Harker (Marta Gastini), the reincarnation of his beloved Dolingen De Gratz, who had died some 400 years before. With the help of Mina's friend Lucy (Asia Argento), to whom he promises eternal life via a little bloodsucking action, he lures Mina to the Transylvanian village of Passo Borgo by pretending to offer her husband Jonathan (Unax Ugalde) a job as his castle librarian. After luring in Jonathan he transforms him in one of his loyal minions and caries on with his work. Now with Jonathan being missing there is room for Dracula to get his fangs into Lucy, but luckily the day is saved by the arrival of Abraham Van Helsing (Rutger Hauer hamming things up nicely) and his leather bag full of crosses, stakes, holy water and a healthy supply of garlic.

Argento wanted this to be a real classic vampire story and that is exactly what we get! A classic Dracula story that tries to find its way between the 1958 Hammer Horror version with Christopher Lee and the campy 1974 Andy Warhol-Paul Morrissey Blood for Dracula. The master of suspense shows us how to make a real classic piece where atmosphere has to be felt. This approach works till a certain extent but doesn't succeed. Nowhere near is this a movie that hasn't been seen before and done better. Dracula 3D really misses its marks on visuals, sound and really interesting character development.

While the performances from most actors aren't bad, they are completely coming over as b-actors thanks to bad character development and a bad script. This is really taking a toll on the complete movie. I really must say this is one of the worst movies I have seen in a long time. Argento is trying new things and that is not a bad thing at all but the movie just suffers because of it. Not only is the script badly done the 3D CGI effects are even worse. It is like a crappy 3D artist that just started school could have made them. There is this one horrible transformation of Dracula turning into a wolf and it really makes me want to scream at the screen! And not in a good way.

But it is really that bad? Well, for some parts yes. Again the atmosphere is there and the movies environments are really well done and feel authenticated and real. In my book that is a plus, also the gore that is used is well done. Dracula at one point decapitates one guy and with his gaze let someone shoot himself in the end which ended up with slow-motion goriness. There's a great eerie dream sequence with a wolf eating Lucy's guts about 53 minutes in that's well shot and even a bit disturbing.

All in all it isn't an Argento worthy movie, although it is nice to see him work on something differently. What I couldn't grasp is the fact that the movie wants to tell us so much but in the end fails to deliver. Also keeping Rutger Hauer out of the movie for 72 minutes was a disappointment to me. I liked the atmosphere but thanks to all the screwed up script/CGI work it just isn't enjoyable at all. If you want a good Dracula movie this isn't it. Well atleast Asia shows herself off.