The Book Shoppe

My favorite “monsters” of the night are vampires.  I guess you can conclude that I have seen every episode of Buffy and Angel and also my favorite movie of all time is “Interview with the Vampire.”  I’ve already pre-ordered “Twilight” on blu-ray.

Our cast is star studded with Keanu Reeves, Gary Oldman, Winona Rhyder, Anthony Hopkins, and Cary Elwes.  The movie is based on Bram Stoker’s book Dracula.  I really liked this movie, but I had some problems with it.  But before I get into problems and fixing them, I think I should begin with the plot.

It’s pretty straight forward.  Johnathan Harker (Reeves) is a lawyer engaged to Mina (Rhyder, and sorry I can’t remember the character’s last name right now).  He’s sent off to Transylvania to help Count Dracula (Oldman) with a real estate purchase in London, England.  The story goes from there learning who Dracula is and everything centered around defeating him.

The other characters are introduced later and the only one worth mentioning is Dr. Van Helsing (Hopkins).  He’s a doctor of the metaphysical sort who is the only person smart enough to figure out what Dracula really is and how to kill him.  Everyone else is either engaged or a friend to one of the main characters and aren’t really that important.

This movie is extremely erotic.  There’s the physical attraction that the vampires have and then there is the love and emotional connection that Dracula has with Mina.  He loves her so much that he is torn between making her a vampire and leaving her a mortal.  It’s a bittersweet ending when she finally kills him because it leads you to believe that they would have a wonderful eternity together.

The book is much different.  It’s been so long since I’ve read it, but as my memory recalls Mina does not travel with Harker and Dr. Van Helsing to kill Dracula.  It is also Van Helsing would ends up defeating Dracula.  And just for good measure not only does Van Helsing stake Dracula through the heart, but also cuts off his head and exposes him to sunlight.  Mina also returns to her normal human state once Dracula dies.

Although I really liked this movie, I had a few problems with it.  There were some parts that I was just left wondering, “Huh?!  What the hell just happened?!”.

When we’re first introduced to Dracula, he is extremely old.  He is wearing a very intricate robe and his hair is very elaborate and over done.  He also looks a few centuries old already.  But later, when we see him again in London, he’s very young.  It’s at this point I had really hoped to see a more attractive actor play Dracula.  Oldman was believable and played Dracula extremely well, but I wanted someone a bit more attractive and pleasing to the eye.

We all know the story of Dracula, he’s a true immortal and he also has the capabilities to control storms and transform himself into a bat, a wolf, and a mist.  However, the bat and wolf forms in the movie are just horrific.  The wolf form especially looks like a really bad werewolf costume…think Oz from Buffy in wolf form.  It’s not believable.  And in fact, Dracula is suppose to look like an actual wolf.  The bat form is also quite demonic.  In the sense he looks like a large ghoulie with wings.  I guess it was suppose to be scary, but these forms were to conceal Dracula’s true identity, not to make him stand out more.

There were 3 scenes, I think, that had random blood spilling out on the screen.  I have no explanation and it really made no sense to the story line.  The only reason I can think of is to show off special effects.

My last problem was that my favorite character from the book is given very little camera time.  Renfield was once a lawyer like Jonathan Harker and went to help Dracula, but ended up being controlled by Dracula as his own servant.  Renfield becomes deranged and (as we see him) is locked up in an asylum.  I liked Renfield because he had a keen philosophy on life.  Renfield believed that if he ate living creatures (such as spiders and other insects (which is all he ingests when we see him in the movie), he would take in their life force causing him to live longer.  He also believed the larger the creature the more life force he would consume.  It’s a unique philosophy.  I don’t know the actor who plays Renfield in the movie, but he does an extremely good job of the protrayal.  You already know before Renfield says his first line that he’s completely deranged.  I just wish he had more camera time.

I went in thinking this would be another long, dull movie.  I saw the old Dracula with Bela Lugosi and though I enjoyed watching it, it was still slightly dull because of how limited the producers and directors were with special effects and the like.  However, I ended up really liking this movie.  I still have to think about whether it’s worth spending money on or not.  I’m not the biggest fan of Winona Ryder.  I watch her movies and think that another actress could have done the part much better than her.  I also don’t like Keanu Reeves.  He doesn’t act as much as he just does the same character over and over again, but he has very little screen exposure.  So, whether I’ll actually spend 30$ to purchase the movie on blu-ray, we’ll see, however, it’s the perfect to see again and again.