|
"Dracula 3000: Infinite
Darkness"
Vampire movies are older
than the hills.
Let's face it--they've
been going on for years. The first theatrical appearance of
the quasi-legendary toothpick fetishist Vlad Dracul, AKA Vlad the
Impaler, AKA Vlad Tepesh, AKA fifty dozen other nicknames of much
more unsavory quality, hit in the thirties. And ever since,
Dracula movies, vampire movies, have been a staple of popular American
film.
Dracula 3000 is at once
the newest and possibly best retelling of a gestalt that should
be as tired as an eighty-year-old man in a marathon.
So what we have here
is the story of, surprise surprise, vampires in space. If
you couldn't tell that from the title and the box art I recommend
a serious course of remedial studies. But we don't truly know
about that until a little ways into the picture. What we kick
off with is a handful of crew members on the deep-space salvage
ship Mother III. Captained by a terribly ironic Abraham Van
Helsing, Mother III is heading off after a rumor. Apparently
a cargo ship is floating derelict out in the blackness of space,
and this means a serious payday for Mother III if they can get to
it while in the universe's equivalent of international waters.
Out on that ship is a
cargo involving a set of black crates. Contained in those
crates is our collection of vampires, and the crew of Mother III
has to survive the vampire assault and escape intact.
Now this is actually
pretty interesting. We're all familiar with the basic vampire
mythos--the story always seems to end when the sun comes up.
But here, here in the depths of space, the sun never rises.
Not unless they actually find a sun and orbit it, but that's beside
the point.
Ironically, that's their
course of action--to take the salvage cargo ship (not the Mother
III, that poor girl took off long before all this really got started)
to a system with two suns and let some sunshine in.
The ending includes a
few interesting surprises. In fact, one surprise will absolutely
make your jaw drop. Guaranteed. Folks brave enough to
sit through the credits will get one final chuckle.
The special features
just plain old don't exist. There's not a subtitle, deleted
scene, or audio option in the bunch.
All in all, Dracula 3000
is quite possibly the best retelling of the Dracula legend to date.
It takes a lot of liberties with the concept, and yet these liberties
actually make the film into a solidly produced package.
Dracula
3000: Infinite Darkness
***
DVD
Directed by
Darrell Roodt
Written by
Ivan Milborrow
Darrell Roodt
Cast
Casper Van Dien .... Van Helsing
Erika Eleniak .... Aurora
Coolio .... 187
Alexandra Kemp .... Mina
Grant Swanby .... Professor
Langley Kirkwood .... Orlock
Tiny Lister .... Humvee
Udo Kier .... Captain Varna
87 mins
OVERALL
GRADE: 3 stars ***
|
