I am so pleased to have found this series right now. I am a huge horror fan and I love all the many sequels that are spawned from a horror franchise. Dracula 2000 blew me away and I anxiously awaited to see the sequel. I never expect the same greatness from a sequel just a decent follow up and that is what Dracula II is but it comes so close to being a great sequel but falls short on several very key elements.
Dracula II introduces us to Father Uffizi, a priest sent out by Cardinal Siqueros to fight vampires but ultimately find Dracula and eliminate him by freeing his soul. Dracula, after being burned alive in the sunrise in part 1 is brought into a morgue where med student Elizabeth and Luke examine the charred corpse. They quickly discover the corpse is more than human and no sooner are they ready to investigate further when they get a mysterious call from a "financier" who offers them millions for the body. They play a quick trade on the body and smuggle it out to a hidden location with the help of Elizabeth's badly crippled boyfriend Lowell, and some fellow students. A person on behalf of this financier helps set Dracula's body up in an abandoned swimming pool while they investigate on him. They hope to discover a way to use Dracula's regenerating blood and tissue to cure diseases in humans and become very rich. Although chained and restrained in the pool horrible things begin to happen when one of students is turned into a vampire and people begin to die. As they all try to survive Father Uffizi is trying to track them down so he can destroy Dracula but as he goes he must eliminate any vampires he comes across. As the group of them dwindles down a horrible plot begins to unfold and a conspiracy that will shock them and end in Dracula's escape yet again.
I will talk about the plus side first. This sequel again takes liberties with the Dracula story and takes some new spins on it. It's modernized and intelligent. Like the first one Patrick Lussier has a cast of young hot stars but unfortunately they aren't quite up to par with the cast of the original. They do well but nowhere near as good as the original cast. The story line is interesting enough and the twist at the end is quite good, there is enough action and suspense although even the suspense wasn't what the first brought to the table but still has it's moments. It also wasn't as gory or "R" Rated as the other. Without a doubt if you even remotely enjoyed the original you're going to want to watch the sequel but let's talk about the troubles with this because it seriously missed some key points that stopped this from being equal to the amazing original. First...continuity....some of it meshes together but on the key point of the Van Helsing dynasty we are left completely in the dark. In the original film Mary Van Helsing takes Dracula's ashes to the lair to spend her life protecting them as did her father but yet it isn't mentioned at all in this one?? A very odd choice by the writers and totally ruins the continuity. Dracula...Gerard Butler was brilliant, he was amazing and captured the character perfectly. Changing actors is fine...you couldn't tell in Dracula's condition that he wasn't Butler anyways but his whole personality has changed. He was more monster, he was less human, angry, and had no solemness to him. He spent the entire film chained up so the film was less about him than it was about the science that they were performing. There was no passion, no sex, no brutality to his character. The two great things they added to the story were Jason Scott Lee's character of Father Uffizi and Jason London's Luke. Two new heroes and Vampire hunters. Father Uffizi is a depthy and interesting character and portrayed excellently by Lee but completely and totally underused. This guy is a trained, brutally set in his ways, he tortures himself in order to fight the evil that he himself fights. They don't give enough about his origin or why Cardinal Siqueros played by Roy Scheider has sent him out to stop Dracula. There is so much untapped information there they could make another five sequels. I am really hoping that some or possibly all (not likely) of these issues will be cleared up in the third installment. Despite these issues the film pulls off being entertaining and a decent sequel. Check out the series, you'll be pleased you did. 7/10
Dracula II introduces us to Father Uffizi, a priest sent out by Cardinal Siqueros to fight vampires but ultimately find Dracula and eliminate him by freeing his soul. Dracula, after being burned alive in the sunrise in part 1 is brought into a morgue where med student Elizabeth and Luke examine the charred corpse. They quickly discover the corpse is more than human and no sooner are they ready to investigate further when they get a mysterious call from a "financier" who offers them millions for the body. They play a quick trade on the body and smuggle it out to a hidden location with the help of Elizabeth's badly crippled boyfriend Lowell, and some fellow students. A person on behalf of this financier helps set Dracula's body up in an abandoned swimming pool while they investigate on him. They hope to discover a way to use Dracula's regenerating blood and tissue to cure diseases in humans and become very rich. Although chained and restrained in the pool horrible things begin to happen when one of students is turned into a vampire and people begin to die. As they all try to survive Father Uffizi is trying to track them down so he can destroy Dracula but as he goes he must eliminate any vampires he comes across. As the group of them dwindles down a horrible plot begins to unfold and a conspiracy that will shock them and end in Dracula's escape yet again.
I will talk about the plus side first. This sequel again takes liberties with the Dracula story and takes some new spins on it. It's modernized and intelligent. Like the first one Patrick Lussier has a cast of young hot stars but unfortunately they aren't quite up to par with the cast of the original. They do well but nowhere near as good as the original cast. The story line is interesting enough and the twist at the end is quite good, there is enough action and suspense although even the suspense wasn't what the first brought to the table but still has it's moments. It also wasn't as gory or "R" Rated as the other. Without a doubt if you even remotely enjoyed the original you're going to want to watch the sequel but let's talk about the troubles with this because it seriously missed some key points that stopped this from being equal to the amazing original. First...continuity....some of it meshes together but on the key point of the Van Helsing dynasty we are left completely in the dark. In the original film Mary Van Helsing takes Dracula's ashes to the lair to spend her life protecting them as did her father but yet it isn't mentioned at all in this one?? A very odd choice by the writers and totally ruins the continuity. Dracula...Gerard Butler was brilliant, he was amazing and captured the character perfectly. Changing actors is fine...you couldn't tell in Dracula's condition that he wasn't Butler anyways but his whole personality has changed. He was more monster, he was less human, angry, and had no solemness to him. He spent the entire film chained up so the film was less about him than it was about the science that they were performing. There was no passion, no sex, no brutality to his character. The two great things they added to the story were Jason Scott Lee's character of Father Uffizi and Jason London's Luke. Two new heroes and Vampire hunters. Father Uffizi is a depthy and interesting character and portrayed excellently by Lee but completely and totally underused. This guy is a trained, brutally set in his ways, he tortures himself in order to fight the evil that he himself fights. They don't give enough about his origin or why Cardinal Siqueros played by Roy Scheider has sent him out to stop Dracula. There is so much untapped information there they could make another five sequels. I am really hoping that some or possibly all (not likely) of these issues will be cleared up in the third installment. Despite these issues the film pulls off being entertaining and a decent sequel. Check out the series, you'll be pleased you did. 7/10