Dracula 2000

Dracula 2000 (also known as Dracula 2001 in some countries) is a horror movie which attempts to transfer the Dracula legend into the setting of a modern teen horror film. With a cast of pop culture stars, including possibly the youngest actor to portray Dracula in a major motion picture, the film was profitable, but not overwhelmingly so. The film's only real distinguishing feature from other vampire movies is a unique story for Dracula's origins. The film was produced by Dimension Films and Neo Art & Logic. Veteran horror film director Wes Craven was executive producer and his long time editor, Patrick Lussier, directed the film. Joel Soisson is credited with the screenplay, with the story by Soisson and Lussier. However, the film went through numerous uncredited rewrites by Scott Derrickson & Paul Harris Boardman and Ehren Krueger.

Cast

• Gerard Butler as Dracula/Judas Iscariot
• Christopher Plummer as Matthew/Abraham Van Helsing
• Jonny Lee Miller as Simon Sheppard
• Justine Waddell as Mary Heller/Van Helsing
• Danny Masterson as Nightshade
• Jeri Ryan as Valerie Sharpe
• Colleen Fitzpatrick (aka Vitamin C) as Lucy Westerman
• Jennifer Esposito as Solina
• Lochlyn Munro as Eddie
• Sean Patrick Thomas as Trick
• Omar Epps as Marcus
• Tig Fong as Dax
• Tony Munch as Charlie
• Shane West as J.T.

Overview

The film opens in present-day London, with a group of thieves infiltrating the antique shop Carfax Abbey. Penetrating into its innermost vault they expect to find a fortune in treasure. Instead they encounter a sealed coffin. Upon attempting to move the coffin, some of the treasure-hunting party are gruesomely killed by the vault's security system, leading the survivors to believe the coffin is the treasure they have come for. It is no surprise when the coffin is later revealed to contain the dormant body of Count Dracula. We learn that Carfax Abbey (also the name of Dracula's London residence in Bram Stoker's original novel) is owned and operated by Dracula's nemesis, Abraham Van Helsing, who, after trapping and subduing Dracula a century before, has been keeping himself alive with injections of the vampire's blood filtered through leeches until he can find a way to destroy Dracula forever.

While flying the coffin back to the United States one of the thieves manage to open the coffin, releasing Dracula. The count proceeds to feast on the blood of the thieves, one of whom happen to be flying the airplane, causing them to crash in the swamps of Louisiana. Surviving the crash, he heads to New Orleans, Louisiana, where Van Helsing's estranged daughter Mary and her best friend Lucy live.

Meanwhile Van Helsing and his assistant Simon head to the U.S. to stop Dracula from releasing his horrors onto the world again.

The one significant twist this film brings to the Dracula legend is its explanation of his origin. In this film, Dracula is portrayed as being in fact Judas Iscariot, cursed to walk the earth as an immortal for his betrayal of Jesus being rejected from admission to both Heaven and Hell. This explains some of the vampire's best-known weaknesses quite neatly, primarily Christian iconography and silver, as Judas was paid in silver for handing Christ over to the Roman authorities. Although Bram Stoker makes no reference to a vulnerability to silver in his novel, it is a part of European vampire lore.

Trivia

• At one point in the movie Lucy Westerman stands in front of a display of her own CDs.
• During the Mardi Gras parade there is a giant mask of Bela Lugosi's version of Dracula.
• This movie has numerous references to both Dracula the novel and other movie versions.
  • Lucy Westerman is similar to Lucy Westernra, the main female character's friend and victim of Dracula.
  • Van Helsing's business Carfax Abbey has the same name as Dracula's English residence.
  • One of the doctors examining Solina is named Dr. Seward.
  • On being offered a drink, Dracula quips "I never drink... coffee," which is very similar to Bela Lugosi's line "I never drink... wine" in Dracula (1931 film).
• The film's heavy metal soundtrack (referring to the songs used in the film, not just the Compact Disc compilation of those songs) is significant for two reasons: the first being that it included the song "One Step Closer," as performed by Linkin Park, before it was released as a single and subsequently became a hit, and the second being that it included a pre-Toxicity (and, by the same measure, pre-popularity) System of a Down's cover of the Berlin classic, "The Metro."

External links

• Dracula 2000 at IMDb