Dracula

Saw the trailer for the new BBC TV adaptation of Dracula, the Count spouting humorous one liners and the action taking place in both the 19th and 21st Centuries I was not sure if I wanted to devote 4.5 hours of my time to watching this. But I'm a big Dracula fan, plus I like Mark Gatiss so how could I resist? I couldn't. Divided into 3 episodes the first was for me the best. This is the beginning, set in the Old Country at Dracula's foreboding castle. Very impressive, the sets, the stunning location, superb special effects. It is also pretty scary. great acting. The only thing caught me off guard was having Van Helsing as a female, but it kind of worked and it is essential to treat that this as a "Based On" adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel, or in other words a re-imagining. Pretty much the entire length of part 2 takes place on board the boat to England. It is good, thankfully the various characters help make it interesting, but it is a tad too long. Part 3 takes place over 100 years later in modern day England. This one is by far the most reworked part of the story. I like the idea of this but do feel that the writers are trying to be too clever for their own good with this section and the humour detracts from the horror, though it still has plenty of scary moments. I am glad that I watched the series, despite initial reservations. Like I have mentioned this is very much a modern reworking of the novel (none of the film adaptations follow the book exactly), watch it with an open mind. It's not going to please everyone but despite all the negative reviews so far it does have a respectable current average score of 7/10.

I like the vampire genre. This is another stab at the classic Dracula tale but with a lot of liberties. I found those liberties to be quite entertaining, however if you are a huge fan of the novel and hoping for some degree of accuracy or commitment you might be disappointed. This movie attempts to be scary, smart and funny. It succeeds somewhat. I enjoyed the campy special effects, they reminded me of the old classic horrors I grew up watching. All in all I found it to be fun. This is not a heavy duty serious gothic Dracula film, this is more like a mini series and has enough moments of humor to keep it a little lighter. Sets and costumes are beautiful. Camera work is good. Acting was good as well. I can definitely see why some people take issue with the overall storyline and some of the dialogue which can come off as modern. At the end of the day, every movie and show isn't meant for a serious award, sometimes you just spend a few hours being entertained by something new. And that's all. I enjoyed it.

Claes Bang is absolutely delicious as Dracula, I really liked him in the part and Dolly Wells just brilliant as Agata Van Helsing.

Episode one had me gripped, episode 2 was brilliant, except had the unwelcome wiff of the BBC fitting it's agendas in, but episode 3, as others have mentioned and I wanted to test, was indeed an absolute train wreck. Not only did it completely fail the first two, it was almost a different programme and the BBC, of course, got their agendas in there. Just awful, with a rotten ending to finish it. Watch the first two, don't ruin it with the third.

10/10 for the first two, 0 for the third.

It was fantastic for the first 2 seasons, well written, brilliantly acted and amazing direction...that being said the 3rd episode was atrocious, clearly pandering for the urban youth, the current London setting, the adulterous storyline, it was like a really bad episode of black mirror, the fearless youth "not scared of anything" ridiculous notion, it could have been infinitely more, they could have cut the nonsense youth side cast out completely and focused on Draculas journey in the new world, a real shame as while it takes up about 20% of the 3rd episode its knocked its score from a solid 9 to an average 5.

They had me at Sister Agatha! True wit genius ! I find it rather odd that all the extreme negative reviews runs a similar streak of personal vendetta rather than a moderate assessment of any good, fair or bad show expected. Truly strange indeed. I love good horror movies and shows but I sincerely cannot sense this series deserved such extreme hatred for not being a purist reflection of its original master adaptation. It was fun enough to watch and in the immortal words of another beast, this show was truly, "Marvelous, Hugely entertaining and there was no COLLUSION frOm Ukraine.. Ahem.. Aka. TRANSYLVANIA!" Lighten up haters. It's 2020. Give it a rest already and smell the blood red roses, will ya? 🙏🌹😜