Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. Watch this trailer for Dario Argento’s Dracula 3D before we get started, okay?
If you’re anything like me when you saw that trailer you asked yourself one question: “That’s playing Cannes? The Cannes? Black and white subtitled art films Cannes? Gay cowboys eating pudding Cannes? That Cannes is playing Dracula 3D?”
Sure, Dario Argento’s earned some respect, but let’s face facts here. He’s been sliding down slope for a while. I love the man, but there’s not a single film he’s done in the last decade that shows a hint of the master who delivered us those gloriously weird what-the-fuck-am-I-watching thrillers of the ‘70s and ‘80s.
It’s like he’s been hit on the head and forgot how to make movies. I get that he’s probably not getting the same budgets, but it’s not like he was working with Cecil B. DeMille budgets before. There was a flair to his filmmaking, no-budget as it was, that demanded to be recognized. That spark is nowhere to be seen in his recent endevours. I don’t know if he’s just lost the passion or the drive to do more than the bare minimum, but whatever’s happened it makes me sad.
Despite that trailer and word of mouth not being so hot, I still sat down today with a glimmer of hope that there would be some of Argento’s spirit in this film.
When the opening credits rolled I thought I might be vindicated. First there was a notice saying that this film was deemed to be culturally significant, which I’m sure was some sort of acknowledgement of a tax incentive received by the production, but still… it drew a laugh from the crowd just before the first notes of Claudio Simonetti’s score hit. Man, is it goofy. Super big, super bold and with a ridiculous amount of theremin.
The font on the credits was likewise gaudy, bright red on black and that’s when I begin to think this was going to be fun. I don’t ask that Argento make serious horror movies, just one where I can feel him invested, going for something like he’s a hungry young filmmaker again. I want to see some passion, some ingenuity… I don’t care if it’s a stupid, bloody exploitation film. It doesn’t have to be high art to impress me, I just want to see him give a shit again.
Sadly, I can’t say that I found the shit-giving I was hoping for with Dracula 3D. There are moments where you can plainly tell Argento and company were in on the joke and knew the shitty movie they were making which elevates it slightly, but only for those moments… then it just goes back to being yet another bad direct to video adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
You know the story, we’ve seen it a million times… although I can’t remember another adaptation that features our beloved Count Dracula turning into a giant praying mantis in order to stab a dude with a big insect leg. So, it didn’t help that every beat of this story has been told and retold a few bazillion times. When you take on something like this you have to bring your A Game. I’m a HUGE fan of Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula. He was able to balance an experimental style (capturing every visual effect in camera) with a brilliant cast (well mostly. Sorry, Keanu) to make a kind of tour de force of filmmaking ingenuity.
Argento just paints by numbers, sprinkling the bland results with a few moments of crazy gore. His actors are either bad, embarrassed or phoning it in… I swear to God I caught Rutger Hauer reading off a cue card, his eyes darting back and forth as he falls over his words in a monotone like a last minute guest on Saturday Night Live.
And then there’s the effects. Calling them direct to video quality is too much praise. We’re talking modern day Full Moon Entertainment level… that weird horror movie with a good cover you stumble upon on Netflix Instant and then realize 30 seconds in that some dude-bros made it in their back yard for $20 and a student discounted version of After Effects. That kind of bad.
In order to not be 100% negative, let me say a couple of nice things about this movie. Asia Argento is still a fox and still looks great without her clothes on… and that fantastic shift from “Wow, look at her boobs-oh-my-God-her-father-shot-that” that can only be gotten in an Argento film is still in full effect.
Thomas Kretschmann is still a good actor, but he’s not at all protected by Argento here, with some really oddly cut dialogue scenes and line-readings… if I were him I’d be furious. I have a feeling Argento cut one of the worst possible versions of his performance in the film.
And… um… well, there’s the meeting scene when some of the townspeople debate about breaking their pact with the Count and he shows up and murders the shit out of the room with his fingernails, fangs and some good ol’ MacGruber-style neck rippings.
That was kind of fun. There were a couple of smaller random gore moments that seemed to come out of left field, but this was the big one and, dare I say, the movie could have a few dozen more like it.
Argento seemed constrained by the source material. If he had let his freak flag fly and done this one up like the opening of John Carpenter’s Vampires, but from start to finish, then I think his Dracula would have been amazing. As it stands now, it is just ridiculous enough to be some good fodder for those folks that like “so bad it’s good” movies. I don’t subscribe to that theory. I don’t ironically like movies. I either do or I don’t and this one is way far into the latter category.
The 3D is sharp, but that’s kind of a problem. With the sharp 3D comes very heavily lit foregrounds and backgrounds, so that makes it impossible to build any real sense of atmosphere that doesn’t feel like a cheap roaming carnival house of horrors ride.
I wouldn’t call Dracula 3D the most disappointing old-master movie I’ve seen… the film that jumps immediately to mind is Burke & Hare because of all the talent John Landis had at his disposal and just how dull and flat the whole thing ended up being… and it did get some ironic applause at the end, but I think the resulting product is in some weird middle ground where Argento can’t decide whether he wanted to make a super fun exploitation film or actually do his adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Either one would have been awesome if he put his heart into it, but sadly he didn’t… and if he did, then I’ll be even sadder because if this is what he thinks is good, quality filmmaking then he truly is lost to us.
-Eric Vespe
”Quint”
quint@aintitcool.com
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