Dracula Untold

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I’m not into Vampires but I was lured by the trailer to see this film which I really did enjoy. Unlike  traditional Dracula films, it was more of an epic fantasy than a horror movie.

The story has been revamped somewhat and we see this dark prince in a new light.

There have been countless adaptations of Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel but none quite like Dracula Untold.

As usual, the film industry have taken real historical events and rewritten all the facts. That’s fine as long as the human race doesn’t get wiped out, leaving only a film collection behind. Imagine a new generation of intelligent beings deciphering that.

Set in the 1400s, during the Ottoman Empire, Dracula is Vlad Tepes the Impaler whose real name is Draculea in his own language. Known for his sadistic cruelty against the Ottomans in history, in the film  Vlad is the good guy. As a child, he had been handed to the Turkish army to be trained as a soldier using brutal methods. He escaped these services when he was made prince of Transylvania, a small country belonging to the Turkish Empire. Now the army were demanding once more, a thousand boys to be of service including Vlad’s only son.  So in order to save his people and his family Vlad turned to a ferocious sorcerer for help. He drank blood from a cup and was granted three days of immortal power. There was a catch to this not unlike a Genie’s three wishes or Cinderella’s pumpkin only much darker. Sometimes the world needs a hero but in this case it needed a monster. The plot thickens here because not only is he fighting the enemy but he also has to keep himself  secret from his own people. We all know the rules of vampires such as the aversion to daylight. This makes his job of defeating an army even harder.

The film was quite short and the story as a whole was a little too compressed not allowing all of the characters to unfold. Luke Evans was well cast for his looks and great acting. Dominic Cooper played the Turk leader Mehmed, also very well but there was more to his background as apparently he was like a brother to Vlad in childhood though it was hardly touched on. Sarah Gadon played Mirena Vlad’s young pretty wife. There was room for a little more romance in the film.

The effects were woolly. Dracula used floods of bats which engulfed the army leaving out much of the gory detail which suited me but if you like choreographed battles with severed limbs, blood and guts flying around you may be disappointed. However there was an excellent fight scene between Mehmed and Vlad at the end which was quite horrific.

The ending was left open to a sequel but that would be set in modern times. I’m thinking ‘Highlander’ remember that one?