User reviews

Was really rather looking forward to this, but was very disappointed by the finished product. It simply was so far removed from Stoker's tale that it could hardly count itself as an adaptation of the book. Not a single line of dialogue from Stoker's text was used; none of the characters were presented as they are on the page (Van Helsing a hermit living in a cellar!), and what book did the Satanist Singleton step out of? It was neither scary, nor sexy. Marc Warren did an interesting Klaus Kinski impersonation when he was old man Drac in the first act, but after his transformation into Robert Smith from The Cure, I lost interest. This is the 2nd time the BBC have filmed Dracula, and this one pales in comparison to their 1977 version starring Louis Jordan.

Being a huge fan of the book and countless other screen adaptations, especially Hammer's fine back catalogue, I looked forward to this with eager anticipation.

Although I found the twists in the plot to be really exciting and a breath of fresh air, I personally found that the hammy acting spoiled it and thought that Mina and Lucy were just plain awful. Not convincing whatsoever.

The creepy Warren gave me some hope as Dracula, although he didn't have presence of character enough to pull it off. I guess not too many actors do! I can only think of Christopher Lee, Bela Lugosi and Gary Oldman who have pulled it off.

David Suchet played a fantastic van Helsing, however and for me, was the star of an otherwise disappointing adaptation.

The new BBC adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula is flawed but makes for enjoyable viewing. It seemed so promising, with a great cast and the aim to create an exciting new take on the old tale. Also, the BBC rarely produce a bad piece of TV drama.

So where did it all go wrong? I think the sometimes drastic changes from the source material were poorly constructed. The writing was competent but the plot dragged and never really flowed. Characters were underwritten and, despite the efforts of the talented cast, remained unconvincing throughout. The character of Jonathan Harker was reduced to a couple of scenes, then disappeared, leaving Lord Holmwood to become the main character. The changes were supposed to bring freshness to an often told story but paled in comparison to the original story; which, told well, is an exhilarating experience.

The casting was perhaps the production's strongest point, though the script never did justice to the characters. Talented young actors Rafe Spall, Dan Stevens and Sophia Myles were wasted in their roles, but Stevens in particular did well to convincingly portray Holmwood despite the dodgy dialogue he had to contend with. Marc Warren made a decent attempt at the Count but his was the most severely underwritten role, and because of this Dracula is never menacing, just some foreign bloke who likes blood. The standout performance came from David Suchet, as Abraham Van Helsing, who stole the limited screen time he was given.

This telling of Stoker's tale was competent but largely dull, benefiting from some interesting acting and a decent ending.

In 1992, Francis Ford Coppola made the definitive version of Bram Stoker's novel "Dracula", with his stylish "Bram Stoker Dracula". Coppola's work and F.W. Murnau's masterpiece "Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens" are the best adaptation of the foregoing novel. I am a fan of vampire movies and the Hammer productions with the character Dracula performed by Christopher Lee are part of my youth.

"Dracula" (2006) is a stylish version made for television, with a great cast and magnificent cinematography that are wasted in a poorly written screenplay that introduces awful modifications to the original romance. This version is decent but absolutely unnecessary; entertains, but also disappoints the fans of the romance. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Dracula"

My partner and I are avid fans of the vampire genre and had eagerly anticipated the airing of this production. We sat down to watch it hoping for the best and that Auntie Beeb would not let us down and we found ourselves sadly disappointed.

It wasn't so much the deviation from the plot of the book that did it - pretty much every Dracula production does that to a certain degree and that is half of what makes these things fun to watch. It was more perhaps the casting, weak characterisation and the fact that most of the action seemed to be crammed into the final 15 minutes that did it. Mina Murray was almost offensively miscast in my opinion and Marc Warren, of whom I am normally a fan, didn't have the charisma or presence to pull off the strong character that is Dracula.

On a plus side, the costumes and sets were excellent, as they tend to be in most BBC period productions and there were some interesting themes, such as the blackening of Dracula's fingernails which perhaps hinted at the corruption that lies in the cursed character. Other than that the rewrite was a weak and disappointing production and doesn't even hold a candle to past efforts by Hammer or indeed Francis Ford Coppola.

I have been a fan of Bram Stokers novel and it's many film adaptations for years. At 70 years old I have seen nearly all. I can safely say this is quite possibly one of the worst Dracula films I have ever seen. How can so many actors that I have admired and enjoyed in the past be so awful in this? Not just some of them ,ALL of them. I was embarrassed for the lot. Stink,stank stunk!

There are many negative reviews here but this had some lovely facets to it. The sets and the locations were absolutely first class as was the camera work. The acting was by no means bad and for once the BBC mercifully spared us from their usual modern cheap trick of getting the male leads to prance round in the nude. This is a different version of the classic tale but quite refreshing for all that. I normally like Marc Warren's acting style but in this case its unfortunately true to say he did not suit the role. Sophie Myles is a fine actress so no complaints there except to say they should have expanded her role. Despite this productions' defects, it does have certain sterling merits and is worth watching out for.

This a professionally and stylish looking BBC made-for-TV adaptation of the famous Dracula story by Bram Stoker, that however differs too much from the original story and adds very little new and interesting in exchange. On top of the that the movie has an extremely poor flow, which makes the movie confusing and dull to watch, with too many- and poorly developed characters.

The movie makes too many leaps in time and the overall flow itself also isn't really perfect. It also makes the movie confusing to follow at times, especially if you don't know the Dracula story in advance. It also makes some of the sequences weak and causes to leave an unsatisfying impression such as the introduction of the Dracula character. Boom! He suddenly is there without any build-up. Its entire build-up and flow, or better said the lack of it all, is the reason why the movie just never becomes scary of even tense to watch. It's an extremely poorly told movie, without any introductions or development. It makes this a very disjointed and hard movie to watch.

The movie leaves lots of room to put in multiple romantic plot-lines, which makes the movie also drag in points, especially the beginning.

The movie was surprisingly good looking. I liked its style. It was a fine combination between the British upper-class kind of atmosphere and the more dark and moody horror atmosphere. The sets and cinematography were simply good.

Even though the cast has some good British TV-actors in it, the acting is still one of the weaker spots and irritating part of the movie. It's painfully bad at times and unintentionally funny to watch. Most actors aren't really to be blamed for this but rather the poor script that makes some bad choices and has some poor and formulaic dialogs in it. It also doesn't help that none of the characters are introduced and developed properly. Seriously, who is who in this movie and what is their purpose exactly?

Dracula really isn't right looking in this movie. I mean, even in his human form he's looking ugly and like a mad monster. He's supposed to be seductive, charismatic and sophisticated. He's none of those things in the movie and besides the actor portraying him looks too young.

A version that you're better off not watching.

2/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

...as I can attest, being one of them; and this isn't it. It's more like a Hammer Films sequel, except that here we don't get tall, haughty Christopher Lee; we don't even get the short, gloating blond guy from Brides of Dracula. Instead we get a pasty, wormy little creep--Guppy from Bleak House--and when he pops up, I'm thinking, Maybe this is Renfield, not crazy yet? And then he introduces himself, and I'm like, "Dracula? Dracula??????" He of the uncanny power over women, the great Boyar, the incarnation of ultimate evil??? Gary Oldman was better than this. Francis Lederer was better than this. The guy with the cape hiding his face in Plan Nine from Outer Space was better than this. Then a little later, up pops a nutty old man--Ben Gunn from Treasure Island? No, this one is Dr. Van Helsing!!! And Arthur Holmwood wants Dracula to cure his syphilis, so he bankrolls Uncle Creepy's vampire church to import him.... What???

I can't imagine that I could ever have liked this story much, no matter what they'd done with it, but I didn't like it at all here, with the scattershot editing, the unsympathetic characters, the fake make-up, Mina looking like a goof...and worst of all was them passing it off as a Masterpiece Theatre "classic" when so little of the book was left. Why couldn't they have changed the character names and called it something else? Huge disappointment.

Dracula (2006)

* (out of 4)

Incredibly bad adaptation from Masterpiece Theatre. Before he gets married, a Lord (Dan Stevens) discovers that he has syphilis. The Lord is told that a man named Count Dracula (Marc Warren)) can get rid of the disease. Um, yeah. I'm really not sure where to start with this film but it's pretty much bad on all levels but it somewhat remains interesting just because of how bad it is. Dracula can stay out in the sunlight and drink wine here so good for him. The performances are all incredibly bad and rival a high school play. The direction is all over the place and it's quite clear the director didn't know how he wanted to tell the story. The film plays so fast it's like you're watching it with the FF button going full blast.

Apart from the streaks of lightning across obvious mock-ups, the moody photography of this film was brilliant, and in keeping with this Gothic masterpiece. But I wonder how many more treatments we're going to get of Bram Stiker's Dracula.

The casting, I thought, was abysmal. Marc Warren looked to me like a petulant teenager who didn't want to be in this film, and who was thoroughly bored with it. He exuded none of the sexuality that people like Lee, Langela and Jourdan did in previous incarnations of the mesmerising blood-sucking fiend.

Stephanie Leonidas and Sophia Myles were a couple of the weakest players of Mina and Lucy I have ever seen in a Dracula adaptation even compared with the early Hammer version.

Rafe Spall didn't have much of a chance to play a role - Harker was a kind of mechanism to get Dracula to England and to give the audience some link to the appearance of Mina in the film. If the whole Harker bit of the script was deleted it wouldn't have made much difference. Holmwoods determination to be cured of syphilis by bringing Dracula to England should have sufficed.

The person who had any real presence was David Suchet as Van Helsing, but sadly his part was only too small and badly written. I think he would have been a great Van Helsing if only he was given the opportunity. Instead he had a bit-part which didn't give him enough time for his character to develop.

I'm really very disappointed in this production apart from the photography. It has some really good ideas about how the Bram Stoker story can be further developed but it missed out because of a weak script, weak acting, and bad casting. Not a film I'd be rushing to see again.

First off, this BBC version of Dracula is much glossier than other adaptations of the novel. However it doesn't follow the same exact plot of Bram Stoker's novel and as such there are many scenes from the novel that are cut from the screen version. This proves to be a major stumbling block as the version often feels like its under pressure to cram everything into a 90 minute production and as a result feels rushed and doesn't allow for a sense of darkness, foreboding or menace to develop, instead it is just there waiting for us when the story opens. What it could have done with was more time dedicated to Dracula before he arrived in England.

The TV version lacks punch because it doesn't allow for an adequate build up of terror and suspense, as the novel does. There is very little shown of Jonathan Harker and the count in Transylvania, and moments such as Dracula scrabbling vertically down a wall like a lizard are left out, there was also very little reference to the 3 brides of Dracula, which I found disappointing. These moments are strategically placed in Stoker's novel to build up the audience's fear and develop the being of Dracula, without them Dracula is simply presented as an evil creature, with no explanation why or how he has come to exist.

However, the scenes in Engalnd are, for much of the time, very good. Sophia Myles gives a very good performance as Lucy. The additional theme of syphillis works well in the story, and the tension between newly weds is also intriguing. But at the climax of the version there is a lack of total emotional and plot catharsis. I think that the main problem for this version of Dracula is that it isn't involving enough, it doesn't grip the viewer enough, I found myself at times reaching for the remote, which is something I rarely do.

Acting wise, Marc Warren is spectacularly miscast as Dracula, and while it is evident that he is doing the best he can, he comes off more like a public schoolboy gone off the rails, rather than an seductive ancient evil force (save for once deliciously evil decapitation near the end). However Sophia Myles is very good as Lucy, conveying a troubled woman torn between lust and love, she is also brilliantly seductive and evil when in Vampiric form.

All in all, I was mildly entertained by Dracula, but I felt it was an opportunity missed, with a longer running time, more scenes in Transylvania, a sharper dialogue, closer reference to the original novel and with a more menacing Count, this could have been something a bit special, unfortunately it left me feeling a tad flat.

Why oh why oh why do scriptwriters, directors, producers, etc insist on taking wonderful books, ripping out the pages, and inserting garbage?

How dare the scriptwriter employed on this project believe he can improve on Stokers original?

Dracula is one of the finest, most frightening horror stories I have ever read. Why oh why oh why is no one prepared to make a faithful film of it?

Dracula is one of the most filmed novels ever, and with every other book to film adaption, one question always crops up; Will it be faithful? Here in lies the first problem- the actual novel is quite dull. It has a fantastic opening of course, full of tension and horror, but after that it does fall rather flat. Because of this rather annoying fact, when you sit down and watch the films you can spot a pattern. Either the film makers will have subtly edited out the boring bits, which usually result in some rather glaring plot holes while the point of the story has been missed completely, or they will ditch the original story altogether, keep the more interesting characters and utter that most dreaded line, "In the spirit of the original". The first example will usually have ridiculous back story in tow (I'm looking at you Mr Coppola), while the second will inject as much sex as possible (you too, Mr Badham) or, God Forbid, move the story to modern day America (for shame, Mr Lussier, for shame).

This is why I loved this adaption of Dracula so much. While it has, for the most part, abandoned the original story, it hasn't forgotten the themes of Victorian morality, the dangers of illicit sex and the importance of faith- I thought the subtle hint of Catholicism was a nice touch. The story that was presented, Holmwood's desperate pursuit to find a cure for Syphillis and live a full life with Lucy, perfectly highlights the fear surrounding the disease at the time, as does the tragic outcome and realisation that in his quest to rid himself of one sexually transmitted disease, he has lost his wife to another.

The scene where Dracula seduces Lucy was beautifully done- sexy but not gratuitous, which is rare for a Dracula adaption, and is further evidence that the film makers have understood that, despite vampirism being Stoker's ultimate and timeless representation of STDs, Dracula is neither an erotic nor a romantic story. At it's core, it is a story about fear.

Many people scoffed when Marc Waren was announced as the one play the famous Count, but just like Daniel Craig's performance of James Bond, I believe his casting has become a case of 'just wait and see'. He was suitably seductive and sinister, and quite frankly I thought he was brilliant in the role, as was the rest of the cast. I was particularly impressed by Tom Burke and Stephanie Leonidas as Seward and Mina respectively.

I sincerely urge you to watch this, it's entertaining but clever, sexy but restrained, scary but without cheap shocks.

Bloody Brilliant.

This BBC TV version of the novel was absolutely dire. A strange departure from their usual faithful, world class productions of classic novels. The original plot was butchered in favour of ludicrous changes including having Arthur Holmewood as a victim of syphilis and trying to get Dracula's 'cult' followers to cure him. Most of the most memorable episodes from the book had gone. It was hampered by some terrible overacting - in particular David Suchet (What on earth were you thinking of being in this drivel Mr. Suchet?) Marc Warren has the sex appeal of a dead goat. His long obviously dyed black hair, girly face and scrawny body just made him look camp! (Sorry Mr. W. but you ain't got the looks the presence or the talent to carry the role of Dracula off!!) Next time BBC - PLEASE don't tinker with classic tales and then we can avoid having to be subjected to another festive turkey like this one!!!