Dark Prince: The True Story of Dracula

This is a very loosely biographical based movie on Vlad Dracula, and it was a very refreshing change.

Roger Daltrey is the weakest actor, and he is pretty good.

Rudolf Martin was perfect for the role of Dracula, what a mix of passion, and vanity.

The story is fact based and if you know your history you can see it weaved though-out this tale. The sets are amazing for a fairly low budget movie.The fight scenes are fair to slightly above average, but this movie is so strongly written you can forgive the weaker fight scenes.

One of the Best Dracula movies I have seen, and by far the best low budget historical(ish) Vlad movie I have seen.

Good try at a Bio of Vlad Tepes but too many historical mistakes of his life. Filmed in Sighisoara Vlad's actual birthplace but they mention that he was born somewhere else. You can actual see the building he was born in, Sighisoara is a beautiful medieval town so filming there was a great idea. Though alot of mistakes were made it was still a good story and a well done film.

This film is based on the known history of Vlad Tepes (Vlad the Impaler), son of Dracul (the name means either devil or dragon), who has come to be known through Bram Stoker's famous novel as Dracula. The film begins with Vlad confessing his life story to Greek Orthodox priests. He is caught in the weblike power struggles involving the Roman Catholic Church, the Greek Orthodox Church, Hungary, and the Moslem Turks. In the midst of all this, he tries to do what is best for his homeland.

The film illustrates the origins of the Dracula myth: blood drinking, impaling with stakes, fear of mirrors, rebellion against religion, and the doom of eternal life because he is cursed to be welcome in neither heaven nor hell. Vlad is presented historically as a Robin Hood freedom fighter, a George Washington of Romania, and a man who tries to bring peace and justice to his troubled land. Some see him as a Messiah while others believe he is the Anti-Christ. In some ways, Vlad can be viewed as a 15th Century Godfather.

The plot unfolds slowly but the movie is nicely photographed and well acted. Vlad himself is played as a moody, brooding, dark figure who easily gives life to the many legends that have become attached to his name.

This is another very well-executed TV-movie and is definitely worth watching. The fact that it premiered on Halloween night is appropriate because the atmosphere is quite spooky.

Some things...

1) Dracula's first wife (whose name has never been historically documented other than known to be a Transylvanian noblewoman) committed suicide in 1462, not 1464, when Dracula was already imprisoned by the King of Hungary anyway. Not sure why the film changed this, really.

2) The impalings... aren't accurate. The oiled stake is put in the buttocks and slowly moves out through the mouth. This takes days, the impalee dying a slow death. We don't see any actual impalings during the movie save one, and the guy slides down the stake like it's a flag pole.

3) While not necessarily portrayed as a nice guy, I was expecting a bit more brutality. Much of Vlad Tepes' acts are brushed aside in the framing story of Dracula being interrogated by the priests in 1476 as "stories" by Dracula himself and this just seems like a kind of cop-out. I realize we don't need to see Dracula cutting the breasts off of women and such, but there was PLENTY of more hard-hitting material that could have been put in there. Example: instead of Dracula just closing the doors and executing the boyars like he does in the film, wouldn't it be far more effective cinematically to follow what *really* happened and show Dracula and his men dragging the boyars to go and build (by themselves) Castle Dracula, which took years and basically worked the lot of them to death? Also would have been effective to show the scene of Dracula rounding up all the homeless and beggars into the grand hall, then having his men burn it to the ground. The only real story of Dracula that was included was the one with the golden goblet that wasn't touched by anyone... that's about it.

4) I realize it was done for dramatic purposes, but the film kept sticking Dracula's broth Radu in places/times he simply wasn't. Dracula was killed in 1476 by a man (a Turk) disguised as one of his own guards... in a MARSH somewhat near Snagov, not inside Snagov Chapel.

5) The ending is neither here or there... I'd rather they didn't go that route, but then the end of Vlad's life is a bit anti-climactic.

I would like to see more Dracula movies based on the actual person. This is the first one I have ever come across. It's nice to see an interpretation on the real person rather than the Hollywood version. Though i wouldn't rely on this movie for true and accurate history, it did appear to stretch it for drama sake. The atmosphere is perfect, dark and haunting in a medieval sort of way. I thought it was amusing how at certain points the movie there were allusions to the common vampire myth (two i recall are about mirrors and driving a stake through Dracula's heart). Those point do spark interest into the real customs and beliefs of that time that formed the myth. I would recommend this movie to those who are at the least mildly interested in history and Dracula. Though it's a little dull at times and the brutality is dumbed down (it is a TV movie), it's a good movie to see when its on TV.