Wrath of Dracula

Anyone remember the "Tales of the Unexpected" series? Well this reminded me from start to rather feeble finish of one of those episodes. It's a pretty straight rehash of the established story that sees "Mina" (Hannaj Bang Bendz) turn up at the remarkably accessible Castle Dracula to try and find her missing husband "Jonathan" (Dean Marshall). Luckily, en route she's allied with "Prof. Van Helsing" (Mark Topping) so when they are admitted to this den of evil blood-suckers, they are armed with four silver bullets - enough for the Count and his three blonde wives who look like they've just finished devouring a rather messy cheeseburger. There's almost nothing here of interest. There are no special effects to appreciate or decry, the photography and writing are the stuff of a decently funded college project and the denouement offers a sense of relief for all concerned - indeed I'm not quite sure why the overly hammy Sean Cronin didn't volunteer for his predictably grisly fate half an hour earlier in this procedural and dull interpretation of a normally dark and menacing story. Not ninety minutes you will ever get back, so I wouldn't bother, sorry.

The film centers around the story of Jonathan Harkers incarceration by Count Dracula. He writes a note of dismay home to his beloved Mina, warning her of his impending doom. Mina who finds help with the dull, boring all knowing Van Helsing begins a journey to castle Dracula to rescue her beloved. Not before though she must train, to have the strength to fight the vampires. For she cannot handle the weight of a hammer to drive the steak through the Lord of the darkness' Heart. Though she can lift suitcase containing a heavy typewriter which weights far more. Anyway she trains in martial arts, for some reason, and learns it rather quickly from mere illustrations, our Heroine is far stronger willed than we would assume her pretty demeanour. The castle is a let down, the vampires and action scenes are poor, sound poor, look worse and the script is tedious. Jonathan Harker is a weak performance in every way a good C- GCSE. Van Helsing isn't bad but the script doesn't do much for his excitement. It's slow and a waste of time. It's not even worth the B movie viewing novelty. The model castle though is great. Draculas lisp is hilarious. The rain effect is probably my most favourite element to the film. It was the moment that most caught my attention, trying to figure out how long they spent adding it. Much like the sound of the wolf howls. Mina is clearly the best paid actress perhaps only paid actress and isn't too bad, I'd expect a decent performance from Hannaj with a decent script and a hint of a budget. The credit sequence is better than the film. Look I get it, it's budget b movie and fun for the crew to make. You'd hope. For Stoker fans, which is why I gave it my time, it's not worth it.

I was liking this as soon as i saw Hannaj Bang Bendz in the opening credits, i think she really adds to any role.

Ok, this time Mina travels to Castle Dracula to find Jonathan. Upon arrival she runs into Van Helsing and from there, well you know the rest. Most of the acting was good.

The film is very pleasing, the set design, the lighting, it just looks good. The story drags on too slow, as though its an episode of a series.

There is a real PG13 feel of this, a very soft approach, total lack of gore and an odd interjection of camp in one of the few fight scenes. I sort of got the feel they were trying different things during the course of production. To me there was a real lack of consistancy.

Overall its not bad and after watching it, my impression was that it had the look of a pilot movie for a tv series. The ending even supported this. So much that it reminded me of the Dracula tv series from 2013 that was cancelled mid first season.

You dont see much of Dracula in this movie at all. That really leaves me wondering about the title. He is sctually portrayed as a wimp.

Its worth watching, it has entertainment value.

However they had a decent cast and could have made it much more lively.

I don't tend to publicly review, due to being an indie filmmaker myself and having to be careful. But after Sean Cronin proved he has the most fragile ego in the world by harassing me - very unprofessional - via various social media accounts (simply for saying I don't rate his work), I felt like I may as well review.

This is one of the most pointless films I've ever seen. The production values are the highlight. The castle actually looks semi-decent. But everything else is abysmal.

The writing is fundamentally terrible - which is a trend with this writer/director and his straight-to-streaming terrible adaptations. I've watched a couple of his films, and they are equally poor.

The highlights though are Cronin and Snow's awful performances. Cronin in particular, for all his experience, remains unable to act on even a basic level. His Dracula has no presence. He has no charisma. His accent is abysmal and the poor dialogue doesn't help him. Overall, it's one of the very worst Dracula's I've ever seen.

Snow is the highlight of crappiness, though. I don't understand how she keeps getting roles. She's always sold as 'sexy', but she really isn't. She looks like she hasn't eaten a meal in a year. Her accent is hilariously awful, and her dialogue is equally ass.

Prime example of 'desperate actors who'll do anything for five minutes of attention'

Absolutely abysmal, from start to finish. A slog to sit through, despite a short run time.

Bottom-of-the-barrel trash.

Another indie horror flick from Steve Lawson, who seems to have cornered the market in such fare. He has a ready business model: shoot a film on an enclosed set with a couple of actors, release it on Prime and follow that with fake 10/10 reviews to make a bit of cash. Sadly, the end product is inevitably useless, as is the case here. The story is very loosely adapted from the Stoker novel, reducing the character list to Mina and Jonathan Harker, Dracula, Van Helsing and a few brides. Mina learns kung fu at one point, which reveals how silly this all is, and the skinhead Dracula doesn't help much either.