Dracula Untold (15, 92 mins)
Starring: Luke Evans, Sarah Gadon, Art Parkinson, Dominic Cooper, Charles Dance, Diarmaid Murtagh, William Houston, Noah Huntley, Paul Kaye, Zach McGowan.
Director: Gary Shore.
Released: October 3 (UK & Ireland)
HOARY horror hokum sinks its fangs into 15th century east European history in a dark and brooding resurrection of the bloodsucking monster from Bram Stoker's 1897 novel.
Screenwriters Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless follow Stoker's lead and draw a direct correlation between the vampire and Vlad II from the Romanian house of Dracula, posthumously named Vlad The Impaler.
Consequently, the notorious warrior, who skewered his victims, is reborn as the eponymous creature of the night, replete with an aversion to sunlight and silver.
Dracula Untold doesn't greatly enrich the vampire mythology, which has been embellished for more than 100 years, and the script can't resist the occasional camp nod and wink, like a snivelling servant called Shkelgim (Zach McGowan), who promises to do Dracula's bidding and hisses, "Yesss massster," as he slinks into the shadows.
Humour is drained almost entirely from the film's arteries. Aside from one off-the-cuff quip from Vlad, reacting with surprise to his newly acquired ability to self-heal ("That's useful!"), the script keeps a straight face throughout the carnage.
As a boy, Prince Vlad (Luke Evans) of Transylvania is conscripted into the army of Sultan Mehmed I and earns a fearsome reputation on the battlefield.
He returns home and ascends the throne, brokering 10 years of peace and prosperity for his people.
The tranquillity is shattered when power-hungry Sultan Mehmed II (Dominic Cooper) decrees that 1,000 Transylvanian men plus Vlad's spirited son Ingeras (Art Parkinson) must join his army.
Vlad pleads for leniency but the sultan laughs off the request: "What is one son? If you are virile, you will make plenty more!"
Unwilling to betray his people, Vlad kisses his wife Mirena (Sarah Gadon) farewell and heads to Broken Tooth Mountain, home of the Master Vampire (Charles Dance).
Sarah Gadon
This creature of the dark forges a pact with the prince, promising superhuman strength, stamina and courage to allow Vlad to overcome the Turks.
In exchange, the prince will hanker for human blood for three days but if he can resist the urge to drink, the enchantment will wear off and Vlad will be restored to his fallible mortal form.
Shot in a gloomy palette of earthy browns and metallic greys, Dracula Untold cobbles together a new back story for one of literature's great creations.
Evans has clearly been working hard in the gym to cope with the physical demands of the role but the script doesn't afford him many emotional scenes.
The central romance with Gadon feels undernourished and Cooper doesn't have sufficient screen time to put meat on the bones of his villain, lessening the impact of a chaotic final showdown amidst swirls of computer-generated bats.
"Sometimes, the world no longer needs a hero, it needs a monster," remarks Vlad.
Maybe so, but I'm not convinced the world needs this Dracula.
5/10
Damon Smith
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