By Jeremy Hannaford (Contributor) – Email
Print Edition: October 15, 2014
It appears that Hollywood has finally given up trying to rehash the same old horror flicks. Entities like I Frankenstein, The Mummy, and now Dracula Untold are no longer just icons of horror. They must now be harbingers of action in this generation. But while it is at least a change of the norm, almost none of them have been anything more than loud, incoherent noise.
Director Stephen Sommers is essentially the pioneer of recreating horror legends into action films. His iteration of The Mummy was entertaining, scary, and made decent coin at the box office. It opened up a whole new avenue of ideas while simultaneously nullifying the ideal that these horror legends owned. Proof of this came in films like Dracula 2000 or The Wolfman (2010). Sommers, while having made a decent film, had opened the floodgate to a never-ending flow of mindless pieces of garbage. While Dracula Untold certainly isn’t completely awful, it doesn’t do well to set itself apart from the rest of the landfill.
What Dracula Untold failed to do (like I, Frankenstein before it) was to accept what it was and make itself enjoyable. If you are going to make film about Dracula being a super-powered anti-hero, there is a fairly large chance that your film isn’t going to be getting any high marks for story or characters.
But you can still make it fun to watch. Sommers once again did this with Van Helsing. The Hugh Jackman action flick was panned by critics for being cheesy, cliché, and completely ridiculous. But at least it was fun to watch. Thanks to the cringe-worthy story and Richard Roxburgh’s superior ability to overact as Dracula, Van Helsing is a great example of a good bad movie.
Dracula Untold does something any film of its calibre should rarely try to do: take itself seriously. Luke Evans’ character, the historic Vlad the Impaler, is drawn from a great mix of myth and history. Turning Vlad’s reputation for impaling as his use of fear to prevent further slaughter was another good idea, turning the gruesome legend into an honourable hero.
But these elements that should have been fine-tuned to make the character more developed are used merely as “oh, that’s interesting” moments. Rather than fleshing out these characters, the film instead feels that it must resort to action, as if those mere minutes were enough to connect the audience with the characters.
Despite its cheesy atmosphere, Van Helsing at least established its characters. However two-dimensional or terrible the performances were, we still understood the characters’ motivations. Dracula Untold not only fails to do that — it has the pacing of a current-day Simpsons episode, as the next scene appears before the previous can barely establish itself. But with a film moving this fast, it is ultimately empty.
Without an enjoyable bad-movie edge, Dracula Untold falls into the same pit as I, Frankenstein did as a forgettable film. As terrible as it sounds, Stephen Sommers should be allowed to make films like Van Helsing again. At least they’re good for a laugh.
