Dracula III: Legacy (2005)

This seriously hurts the Dracula myth. Dracula is NOT Judas. The very Dracula novel will tell you that he 'must be the Dracula who fought the Turks'. That's Vlad the Impaler, born 1431 and died 1476. NOT Judas. And I find the attempt to justify Dracula's limitations to tie them to the Judas story to be flawed at best. Okay, so he was paid in silver when he betrayed Jesus so he hates silver, he hates the sun because he tried to kill himself at dusk... O...kay... and he hates crosses because of Jesus being crucified (long held guilt?). So how do we explain his aversion to Garlic? They had Italian at the last supper? Also I do NOT like the idea that Jesus would condemn anyone to be a vampire. Jesus forgave Judas. And why would he come to save humanity only to unleash the world's worst vampire on the Earth. That's a Messiah who gave us Count Dracula?! Some Messiah unleashing a monster on us. Thanks a lot! This is a poor sequel from a film (Dracula 2000) that was weak to begin with. Still Rutger Hauer is a good actor though.

I am a Romanian guy (although I do not live in Transilvania or near Bran :)) and I live in Bucharest. Even if living in my country is not like living in Germany or UK or USA, we are not beggars... this movie is nothing but bad taste: bad directing (if you look close you will see the same old car filmed twice - for example), bad script and above all... bad acting. I do not even know what is the most disgusting thing: the offense brought to Romania and to its people or the stupidity of the story. Of course, they go hand in hand, but what can we expect from this kind of movie/actors/stuff. And for who wonders: I found the movie on a friend's DVD containing other important stuff and only curiosity led me to the end of this movie. As I said, a strong 1, because I can not note it bellow...

The renegade priest/vampire slayer (Jason Scott Lee) was nearly killed by a vampire. Years has passed... the priest and his loyal partner (Jason London) kill vampires for a living just into they find Dracula (Now played by the underrated Rutger Hauer) & destroyed him... once and for all.Directed by Patrick Lussier (Dracula 2000, Dracula 2:Ascension, My Bloody Valentine "2009") made an watchable but very flawed and disappointing sequel to the two previous movies, which the director was loyal enough to stay with the series. Lee gives an somewhat improving performance after the second film but he still looks lost at times. Hauer's role as Dracula is disappointingly short... sadly. Still, Lussier manages to have good locations and fine production values but it is not enough to cover the weak areas of the screenplay.DVD has an good anamorphic Widescreen (2.35:1) transfer and an decent Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound. DVD has an audio commentary by the filmmakers, deleted scene, alternate ending and more. "Dracula 3" is OK as entertainment but the filmmakers should have known better and it was shot as the same time as "Dracula 2". Horror fans might like this but they will find themselves bored in a couple of sequences. Super 35. (** 1/2 out of *****).

Dracula III: Legacy starts as part Vampire, part man all Vampire hunter Father Uffizi (Jason Scott Lee) & his new sidekick Luke (Jason London) manage to learn that Dracula (Rutger Hauer) has returned to his homeland of Romania, Father Uffizi wants to destroy him once & for all while Luke wants to rescue Elizabeth (Diane Neal). They arrive in Romania & quickly discover that Dracula is using rebels to collect victims for him & his Vampires & using the civil war as a cover, it's up to Father Uffizi & Luke to stop him once & for all...Co-written & directed by Patrick Lussier this is the straight-to-DVD sequel of Dracula 2000 (2000) & Dracula II: Ascension (2003) which this was shot back-to-back with. For some reason the title character of Dracula is played by different actors in all three films, Gerard Butler in the first, Stephen Billington in the second & Rutger Hauer here in the third without any real explanation given for it. Anyway the script by Lussier & Joel Soisson brings the Vampire legend bang up to date & places Dracula in a modern war torn Romania using the chaos caused by fighting rebels & the like as cover for his Vampiric activities which is a novel idea I suppose but one which not much is made of. The film moves along at a decent pace, there's a few good set-pieces & the like but I never felt particularly emotionally involved with anything or anyone, I was just sat there waiting for the next Vampire to show up rather than being enthralled by the story. Dracula III: Legacy is a reasonable film, it passes the time harmlessly enough but I just felt it was a little bit too 'middle of the road' as it were & ultimately a bit forgettable.Director Lussier does a decent job, there's some nice camera angles & well lit scenes but apart from the occasion sporadic piece of stylish film-making it's pretty routine. The gore levels are a little low, there's some melted faces, some dead mutilated bodies, arms & head whipped off & a few largely bloodless staking, some priests impaled on huge stakes & little else. There's a bit of nudity as well but not enough to get excited about. Dracula III: Legacy (Legacy by the way is a word the makers have seemingly plucked out of the air at random because it 'sounded' cool) is maybe the one & only time in cinematic history that someone is attacked by a Vampire walking on stilts! I wouldn't say it's overly scary or exciting but it does have a bit of mood to it.With a supposed budget of about $3,200,000 this was shot at the same time as Dracula II: Ascension in 2002 but remained unreleased until 2005. Actually shot on location in Bucharest in Romania this looks nice enough with decent production values. The acting is alright but no-one is going to win any awards, Roy Scheider turns up in a (very) small role.Dracula III: Legacy is a perfectly entertaining way to pass 90 odd minutes without ever really getting one worked up too much, I liked it but didn't love it & doubt I would ever want to see it again & I will probably have forgotten all about it by the end of the week.