‘Dracula Untold’

By John Lyons

For the last few weeks I’ve been hearing less about ‘Dracula Untold’ and more about the cinderella story of the Irish man who directed the film – Gary Shore.

Shore was plucked out of obscurity after having directed a series of music videos and commercials in order to helm Universal’s reboot of their beloved monster.

By the looks of things, it was Shore’s unique visual style that landed him the job.

I may have seen my fair share of vampire-themed films over the years, but I’ve never actually read the original Bram Stoker classic. Even though I’ve owned a copy of it for a long time, it still sits on the bookshelf gathering dust.

In my ignorance, I just blindly assumed that Dracula was always the original vampire. Either I’m horribly mistaken, or Universal is re-writing the creature’s origin story from scratch.

Interestingly, ‘Dracula Untold’ centres around historical figure Vlad the Impaler (played by Luke Evans), a fierce Romanian ruler from the fifteenth century. Raised by his enemies, the Turks, in order to be a great warrior, Vlad now rules his own kingdom in the heart of Transylvania.

Vlad and a group of his men venture deep into the mountains and encounter a  vampire, hidden away in a cave. Vlad barely escapes with his life, but upon returning to his kingdom, messengers from the Turks army inform Vlad that he must surrender one thousand young boys from his kingdom to the Turks so that they can continue molding their giant army.

Faced with a tough decision, and knowing that there’s no way his people can defend themselves, Vlad concludes that: “Men aren’t afraid of other men. What men fear the most – is a monster.”

Vlad ventures back to the mountain where he first encountered the vampire in order to make a deal with the devil…but it comes at a price.

Universal have taken an interesting approach to rebooting the vampire mythology by mixing elements of historical fiction with the modern hollywood blockbuster.

However, as director Gary Shore has already pointed out: “Anybody who’s going to the film expecting a horror film, is going to be sorely disappointed. For me, it was telling a story. I was trying to tell a good drama, that has action-adventure elements to it.”

And that’s exactly what the film is, which unfortunately causes a huge divide in the audience. As I was walking out of the screening, some people were ranting about the film while others were singing its praises. I found myself somewhere in between.

While the first act of the film does a splendid job of setting up an interesting premise and a character faced with a tough choice, what follows is mostly action sequences.

To be fair, this is what the director promised, but then again, the drama and action rarely happen simultaneously. It’s almost always drama followed by action. Or to be more accurate: drama followed by action followed by action. Repeat.

Even though the film has its faults, I have to admit, I did get caught up in it. However, the ending left a sour taste in my mouth, because it solely exists in order to get people hyped about a sequel, rather than having any actual relevance to what preceded it.

‘Dracula Untold’ is definitely geared for a specific audience rather than for fans of vampire mythology, which probably isn’t a good thing.

However, if you like the sound of a vampire story told through a ‘Lord of the Rings’-esque lens, then you’re in for a treat.

6/10

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