Dracula

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Summary: Review for "Dracula"
Review: I found this old favorite of my, chilling while mixed with a soft and sensual nature intertwined. Frank Langella was a superb vampire, because he added sort of a sympathetic element to this sometimes cold and mysterious character. It fits the mold of the modern vampire films. A must see!

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Summary: Dracula
Review: This was a really great movie. ive got some pro's and con's about it. PRO: The dark atmosphere terrified me! even without Frank Langella on screen. CON: There was a character mix up. Mina "Van Helsing" wasnt in the novel or any other movie; Lucy "Seward" was the same way. PRO: Donald Pleasance was an awesome Dr. Seward! CON: The movie followed very little of the novel's story line, but it was pretty well written anyway. PRO: Frank Langella was Dracula. He was terrifying and charming all at the same time. Perfect Count. CON: The part written for Harker was a little weak. He wasnt the vampire hunter I had imagined. If he could have been in the castle Dracula like in the novel, he would have been great! PRO: The wolf in the movie is really cool. He has red eyes and it just looks really creepy. CON: Carfax abby is a little too much like what people expect Castle Dracula to be like. Its on a cliff, its huge. kind of stereotypical. Inside, its incredibly good!

PRO: The horror is subtle in some parts due to Langella's performance as a suave vampire. also the atmostphere helps alot. CON: Van Helsing dies! that really [wasn't good], because he was such a cool character. PRO: the scenery was tremendous! the DP really did a great job! All in all, this was a great movie! i recomend it highly!

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Summary: FRANK MAKES A SEDUCTIVE DRACULA!!!!
Review: This movie is very good.it has its violence,and it has its love and romance.This for a die hard Dracula fan and a drama fan.Frank Langella,stars as the dreadful,yet suductive Count Dracula,he travels the world searching for his love.Laurence Oliver stars as vampire hunter Van Helsing who hunts the undead blood lovers down,and Kate Helligan plays the role of a young beauty who becomes Dracula's desire.Along with a great cast and story,this is Dracula as you never seen him.And once you have seen Dracula,you'll never forget it!

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Summary: The Best Dracula on Film
Review: I am always amazed at others' reactions to this film. Some are upset that it doesn't follow the Lugosi version; some believe it follows it too closely. Some are upset that it doesn't follow the novel; some believe it doesn't hold a candle to the Coppola travesty.

I am a longtime scholar of the novel, the greatest of the post-gothic novels and probably the first modern horror novel, and am usually disgusted with the liberties taken in film versions. The Lugosi/Dean version, stage and screen, bears little resemblance to the novel, and is a pretty lousy flick if you discount Lugosi's mystique; the Spanish version produced at the same time is much more interesting. The Coppola version, supposedly faithful to the novel (only to those who haven't read the novel), actually reverses all the elements to produce one of the most perverse versions ever: every good character is presented as sleazy, inane, or insane, and Dracula is held up as some sort of hero instead of a monster! Add the ludicrous performances of Wynona Rider and Keanu Reeves, the over-the-top hamming of Anthony Hopkins, the impenetrable pseudo-accent of Gary Oldman, and the huge lapses in continuity (why does Reeve's hair keep changing color?), and you have an infuriating experience for the true Dracula fan.

John Badham jettisons the novel entirely, and thus frees himself from comparisons. The movie is visually stunning. Kate Nelligan is gorgeous and acts the hell out of the part of Lucy, a "modern" woman at the beginning of female suffrage. Frank Langella is the most beautiful, sexiest Dracula conceivable - the merest gesture of a finger speaks volumes. And for the first time ever, it is truly frightening to see Dracula crawling head-first down the wall! Laurence Olivier is wonderful as Van Helsing, moving, intelligent, and wonderfully funny (my favorite lines are his: "There is work, wild work to be done!"). The humor is always intentional and very sly. The characters are fully fleshed out and relate wonderfully to one another. There are a few lapses - Dracula casts no reflection, but the dead Lucy appears reflected in a pool of water (perhaps because she hasn't been dead long enough yet?). The death of Renfield is extremely close to the novel's scene, moving and gut-wrenching at the same time. Every character part is filled beautifully, particularly Donald Pleasance (his nonstop eating is understated and used to illuminate, not merely as a schtick). The music is big and romantic and always a propos. Finally, the characters' relationships, while bigger than life as befits a gothic story, are based on true emotions, and this is what breathes life into the film. These Edwardian ladies are very prim and proper, until Dracula's power takes them into a world of sensuality.

As you can tell, I'm a big fan of this film. I was thrilled from the opening howl of a wolf and the shot of that ship pounding through the storm toward the cliffs of Whitby as the desperate sailors tried to hurl Dracula's crate overboard. After the wreck Mina finds Dracula unconscious in a cave on shore, and as she bends over him his fingers reach out slowly, spider-like, yet with perfect grace, to take hold of her own. This is what the gothic novels were about: beauty and horror, fear and yearning. Cheers to Badham! Get the movie!

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Summary: Dracula - the old style.
Review: The first time I watched this movie was back in 1980. I remember it as the first Vampire movie which depicted a Dracula holding a cross. I was quite impressed back then.

More than 20 years later, I bought the DVD version of the movie from local HMV store. After viewing it, I believe I paid too much. I was expecting the quality that DVD can deliver, but most of the time I was under the impression that I was watching a VHS copy, instead of DVD. The colour was poor and close to black and white. Although I have set my screen contrast to high, the picture was still too dark. The sound, on the other hand, was quite reasonably done (for the movie of its age). One more thing worth mentioning is the closed captioning service. I spot quite a few errors which I believed was caused by some confusion. This movie used the original Bram Stoker's character, but did not really follow the original story. But again, this is not Bram Stoker's Dracula, so I guess it's OK to modify a bit of the story line.

My conclusion: I was not impressed by this DVD. In fact, watching it once is more than enough for me. Imagine Entertainment should have treated the movie better.

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Summary: I WANT TO SUCK YOUR BLOOD!
Review: Even though this movie was very dramatic and sexy this movie was very cool.Very different from Bram Stoker's novel but still a good movie.11 and up do to adult behavior and violence.

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Summary: Do not be tricked about this movie.
Review: Please, to everyone thinking about buying this title, to all Dracula fans I say Do not be tricked in buying this Dracula movie 'cos you will be really really sorry...Believe Me...But if you like thriller & dramatic movies, then try it...

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Summary: It's a shame, but I like this movie anyway.
Review: I bought this DVD, because I love horror films, and it was priced right at the time; I think I found one of the only remaining copies out there at SunCoast, now that Image has lost it's liscense to produce this movie. It was actually clearence-priced. As far as DVDs go, this one is a poor production. At first, I thought it had somehow become a black and white film since I first saw it on the big screen in the 80s, but then I fiddled with the color and contrast till I finally found some color and contrast. I've never seen this on any of the hundred or so DVDs I've got, but for some reason it begins playing in black and white and you HAVE to adjust it for color.

Hmm. Extras. There are none. I kept hitting the menu button, trying to find out how in hell the movie became black and white in past twenty years. Nothing but a scene access menue.

Sound. Good. Though I hear this version is missing some of the original music score because of legal complications. Too bad.

Now the movie. It really is the stage-play version, and not Bram Stoker's novel, that is brought to the screen. So, as always, it suffers from artsy interpretations that somehow confuse love with sex, and not very good sex if you happen to be the victim. I think Langella's performance was good. And I've always thought Kate Nelligan was a very beautiful actress. Donald Pleasence, one of my all-time favorite horror character actors, was nearly wasted here, because he's always had a strong presence that just wasn't allowed to come out here. Olivier is stout, and always gives a good performance, as he did here. But I felt his character needed more fleshing out. Still, I wanted to cry with him, after he had to stake his vampiric, half-decayed daughter through the heart; this scene better than all the others having to do with vampirism in the film, helps to illustrate the evil that is Dracula.

The ending. Too bad. I liked the kill scene, though it still doesn't top the one in Hammer's Horror of Dracula. But then they went and blew it by having an ambivelent moment at the very end, when Lucy looks up at the fluttering remains of Dracula, now "kiting" away from his scene of destruction, and we get a mysterious, dreamy smile, as if to say, hey, he'll be back, and it's okay if he wants to suck my blood and turn me into a fiend that kills babies and damns them to hell, sure, why not.

Now, why I still like the film. Badham did, I thought, a good job of bringing to the eighties a Hammer-style period piece. There's plenty of atmosphere here, and a wonderfully creepy scene in the graveyard, when Van Helsing has to crawl under his daughter's coffin to gain access to her secret tunnels, an abandoned mine that runs all through the underside of the town. I loved the castle, and I thought the scenes along the ocean front, where people milled about looking at the wreckage of the ship that brought Dracula to thier town, were beautiful.

I remember now, after watching the DVD, that I walked out of the theater back in the 80s feeling slighted, but still having enjoyed the film. I think Badham is a good director, I just think he relied too much on the stage-play version of this story, and should've gone back to the source, the novel. After all, the best movies are still the ones that follow our favorite books the closest.

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Summary: Rare and Delicate Beauty!
Review: This is by far the best production of Dracula I have ever seen! The images are beautiful, and the background music flatters the perfect scenery well. Langella is frighteningly charming as the evil Dracula. (Often evil is attractive.) There is real terror in how we are gradually exposed to the full extent of his evil. Eve and Pleasence are fine. Olivier is over the top as Dracula's virtuous enemy. I am not sure this was the author's intention, but it is a powerful tool when an actor like Olivier is introduced in the 2nd half. Comic relief is well placed. (Donald Pleasence is always eating.) These are two of the greatest things I can say about this masterpiece. (1) The movie is terrifying without a huge amount of blood or effects. Even the characters do not raise their voices much. BUT, the intensity of the situations and dialogues is what can strike fear into us. (2) Like the heroes in Charles Dickens' books, Olivier, Eve, and Pleasence are NOT supermen. They are regular people who rise to face and defeat an evil presence in their setting. The end is done with superb skill. The conversations stop, and the final fight begins. Even the symphony music for the end credits seems to flatter this end well. This is one of those rare movies that I CAN NOT say enough good things about. After you have seen this version of Dracula, NO OTHER version even comes close!

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Summary: BUY THIS VIDEO IT WILL MAKE YOU FALL IN LOVE WITH DRACULA
Review: I am not a true "spooky movie" fan. I prefer gothic and classic romance videos. I think this is why this movie was so wonderful for me. Frank Langella was a true luring and captivating and sexy Dracula in this video. His eyes are truly hypnotic, and he has those full romantic lips! I have never seen him before, but after this video, I started picking up a few of his other gems. He has a silent, macho, bearing which holds up very nicely in this remake. I recommend it to all those gals out there who want to see a very handsome Dracula. I think this movie was 10 times better than the Wynona Ryder one. It wasn't quite as "crude"