"Argento's Dracula" is at the arch extreme of the kinds of Dracula movies out there. One can have the exquisite Werner Herzog version with Klaus Kinski and partially filmed at Romania's Castle Bran that wrings extraordinary meaning from Stoker's story. Or Coppola's sumptuous, chromatic, limpid, lushly-told account with fine acting and HIV metaphors. Argento's auteur version is the badly-lit community theater rendition where the script often makes little sense, the acting is ham-fisted, the lighting garish (what's with the yellow gels?), and where when the storyline lags as it often does, the director tries to salvage it by having an actress bare breasts or calling for something quite hemorrhagic to happen. One keeps hoping this film might rise/fall to the level of being appealingly appalling, but it remains merely risible and dismal and hackneyed. With a performance from the otherwise capable Rutger Hauer that should be struck from his resume. Two stars from me merely because there are transient moments of actual beauty to which Argento is not oblivious.
Review of Dracula 3D
