Dracula starts at the 'Westenra House, London 1899' where both joy & tragedy strikes the life of Arthur Holmwood (Dan Stevens) as on the one hand he ask's his girlfriend Lucy Westenra (Sophia Myles) to marry him but soon after he learns that he has the fatal degenerative disease syphilis that will slowly eat away at him. Meanwhile Lucy's friend Mina Murray's (Stephanie Leonidas) boyfriend the solicitor Jonathan Harker (Rafe Spall) is told by his boss to travel to Transylvania to concluded business with a Count Dracula (Marc Warren) who wants to relocate to Britian. Once there he discovers Dracula isn't all he seems... Back in England at 'Castle Holmwood, Whitby' & Arthur is up to something sinister, something to do with Count Dracula who has travelled to England on the ship the Demeter, the ship crashes on a beach near Castle Holmwood & when investigated all the crew are either dead or missing...
This one-off English production was directed by Bill Eagles & was produced for this year's festive schedule by the great British institution that is the BBC & I thought it was a pretty decent effort especially when I consider what else has been on over here during Christmas but that's another story. This time the adaptation of the Bran Stoker novel falls to Stewart Harcourt & he takes a fair amount of 'artistic creativity' with the original source material. To be fair I don't know whether this was advertised or intended as a faithful adaptation or not, I just sat down & watched it last night, but haven't we had enough Dracula films already? It's funny because I before the month of December I hadn't seen a Dracula film in literally years & then by some complete coincidence I go & see three in one month, amazing eh? The basic story of Dracula is good, you know the Vampire bits, him coming over to England & sucking the blood of beautiful young women, the Van Helsing character & the late 19th Century setting which this version has but it also changes a few things, it leaves a few things out completely & adds a few things as well. I particularly liked the fact that Dracula was brought over here by someone, he was brought over here for a purpose & I also liked the fact that he had to be invited into the country. I didn't like what they did with the Van Helsing character though, they completely changed him in every way except name. I thought it was a decent & entertaining adaptation that tried a few new things out & generally speaking it all moves along at a nice pace & they worked pretty well.
Director Eagles does OK, I think I'm right in saying it was shot on video so it doesn't quite have that grand look about it but this is TV I suppose. Unsurprisingly the sets & production are excellent for a BBC production, we really do know how to shoot period pieces over here & some of the locations are great too especially the graveyard with snaking vines & roots everywhere & the scenes inside Count Dracula's castle which are all filmed with an emphasis on eerie blue/green lighting. My only complaint is that sometimes it looks & feels like a Merchant Ivory Sense and Sensibility period drama & forgets that it's a horror film. There are a couple of scene with gore but nothing too nasty & a love scene as well.
Technically Dracula is as good a it could have been, the sets, the costumes, the props & the overall period production design is top-notch. For a British TV production this is pretty impressive. The acting was OK with the fine actor David Suchet playing Van Helsing somewhat wasted as he doesn't make an appearance in the film until past the hour mark. I'm not sue about Dracula himself, he looks a bit too young & handsome for me, or is that just jealousy?
Dracula isn't the best adaptation of the source material that's out there but as a stand alone film I liked it & there are certainly worse Dracula's out there. I have no idea whether this will see the light of day on DVD/video but it wouldn't surprise me if it did & if it doesn't it'll get a repeat soon enough & when it does I'd advise you that it's well worth a watch if you missed it this time around.
This one-off English production was directed by Bill Eagles & was produced for this year's festive schedule by the great British institution that is the BBC & I thought it was a pretty decent effort especially when I consider what else has been on over here during Christmas but that's another story. This time the adaptation of the Bran Stoker novel falls to Stewart Harcourt & he takes a fair amount of 'artistic creativity' with the original source material. To be fair I don't know whether this was advertised or intended as a faithful adaptation or not, I just sat down & watched it last night, but haven't we had enough Dracula films already? It's funny because I before the month of December I hadn't seen a Dracula film in literally years & then by some complete coincidence I go & see three in one month, amazing eh? The basic story of Dracula is good, you know the Vampire bits, him coming over to England & sucking the blood of beautiful young women, the Van Helsing character & the late 19th Century setting which this version has but it also changes a few things, it leaves a few things out completely & adds a few things as well. I particularly liked the fact that Dracula was brought over here by someone, he was brought over here for a purpose & I also liked the fact that he had to be invited into the country. I didn't like what they did with the Van Helsing character though, they completely changed him in every way except name. I thought it was a decent & entertaining adaptation that tried a few new things out & generally speaking it all moves along at a nice pace & they worked pretty well.
Director Eagles does OK, I think I'm right in saying it was shot on video so it doesn't quite have that grand look about it but this is TV I suppose. Unsurprisingly the sets & production are excellent for a BBC production, we really do know how to shoot period pieces over here & some of the locations are great too especially the graveyard with snaking vines & roots everywhere & the scenes inside Count Dracula's castle which are all filmed with an emphasis on eerie blue/green lighting. My only complaint is that sometimes it looks & feels like a Merchant Ivory Sense and Sensibility period drama & forgets that it's a horror film. There are a couple of scene with gore but nothing too nasty & a love scene as well.
Technically Dracula is as good a it could have been, the sets, the costumes, the props & the overall period production design is top-notch. For a British TV production this is pretty impressive. The acting was OK with the fine actor David Suchet playing Van Helsing somewhat wasted as he doesn't make an appearance in the film until past the hour mark. I'm not sue about Dracula himself, he looks a bit too young & handsome for me, or is that just jealousy?
Dracula isn't the best adaptation of the source material that's out there but as a stand alone film I liked it & there are certainly worse Dracula's out there. I have no idea whether this will see the light of day on DVD/video but it wouldn't surprise me if it did & if it doesn't it'll get a repeat soon enough & when it does I'd advise you that it's well worth a watch if you missed it this time around.