Halloween Horror Movie Countdown: One to Avoid

Directed by Patrick Lussier, written by Joel Soisson, 100 minutes, rated R.

Certainly there have been worse adaptations of Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” than “Wes Craven Presents: Dracula 2000.” For instance, 1978’s “Dracula’s Dog,” 1966’s “Billy the Kid vs. Dracula” and the 1979 French film “Dracula and Son” all come immediately to mind.

But as badly conceived, directed, written and performed as those films were, none offered a premise as absurd as the one director Patrick Lussier and his screenwriter Joel Soisson present in “Dracula 2000.”

I hope you’re sitting down, because this time out, Dracula isn’t merely the prince of darkness or the king of the undead. No, in this film, Dracula is actually Judas Iscariot. Yes, that Judas--the one responsible for nailing Jesus to the cross.

As unbelievable as that sounds, the film runs with the idea, embraces it, which makes the experience of watching “Dracula 2000” doubly surreal. After seeing the movie, which Lussier and Craven must have pitched to Miramax as “Dracula” meets ‘The Last Temptation of Christ,” it isn't a stretch to say that those who make the mistake of seeing it might be genuflecting midway through.

The story, such as it is, follows Christopher Plummer’s Dr. Van Helsing, a man of a certain age who has kept himself alive through the help of leeches. Lots of leeches. So many leeches, in fact, that one half-expects the film to make a sudden trip to Africa, where Katherine Hepburn and a freshly undead Humphrey Bogart could make smart cameos from the bow of the African Queen.

These leeches, filled with the blood of Dracula (whose body Van Helsing has stored in the basement of his London antique store), are periodically sucked dry by Van Helsing, thus extending his life and allowing him to make certain that Dracula never walks the Earth again.

But when Dracula (Gerard Butler) is released from his coffin by a band of airheads trying to steal Van Helsing’s antiques, all hell, predictably, breaks loose.

With Johnny Lee Miller, Justine Waddell and Omar Epps in supporting roles, “Dracula 2000” isn’t a total bust--the cinematography is excellent and Plummer does his best to lift the film’s lugubrious script. But unlike other horror movies bearing Craven’s name, the film takes itself too seriously. There’s never a moment of intentional humor here, never a time when we sense Lussier winking at the audience, which is certainly strange considering the film’s unusual take on Stoker’s classic.

Grade: D