Dracula: The Dark Prince Movie Review

For you poor souls obsessed with the minutiae of vampires and their intrinsic legendry, Dracula: The Dark Prince is for you. But if you're looking for more of that Buffy experience, you've come to the wrong place.

Misleadingly sold with its red-eyed vampire on the cover, this is essentially a history of Vlad the Impaler, a 15th century Romanian prince/warrior who, as legend has it, could not be killed. Rudolf Martin stars as the titular "dark prince," who spends his days battling his neighbor... known as "the Turk." In fact, he spends virtually the entire movie fighting the Turk or overthrowing stooges trying to relieve him of his crown. And there's even a love story.

As I'm unfamiliar with Romanian history during the end of the dark ages, I don't know quite what to make of Dracula's claim to be a "true story." I will say it's obviously fluffed up but at the same time it's a bit repetitious, with countless battle scenes that don't offer much closure. In the end we're left with the notion that Vlad the Impaler was (and remains) a national hero, not a demon walking among the dead. And that might put a crimp in your enjoyment of the Bram Stoker stories....

Aka Dark Prince: The True Story of Dracula.