CAN one find love in the Impaler? There is no pun in that question; there is also no sexual undertone in that opening line to this review.
Dracula—or Prince Vlad—was a ruthless warrior, a dauntless defender of his people. He was greatly feared because he did not only kill or decimated his enemies. He impaled them, creating a landscape of warriors barbecued for history. Horror history.
But so much of Dracula has remained untold until this film titled Dracula Untold. The film is by no means official history. Because it refused to go the way of the camp, the story of Dracula in the hands of writers Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless and as directed by Gary Shore becomes one convincing narrative.
For the generation weaned on the Prince of Darkness as played by Christopher Lee, Dracula needs no explanation. He came to us in a full package, a monster with a propensity to be grand and almost flamboyant with his cape. Slicked-down hair and a pair of fangs deserving of Intellectual Property Rights, that particular Dracula slept during daytime in a coffin and could die when the sun hits any part of his body. As an evil creature, Dracula had weaknesses: ethereally lovely women that he turns into his slaves after turning them into the Undead. Dracula could come into a fortified home as a smoke or as bat.
Well, that Dracula has outlived its usefulness. We were not interested in the old Dracula because we never got to know his origin. He served a population that was part of generations that survived the war. Those generations needed boogie-woogie and jazz and fun. Monsters did not need any validation. They were monsters and that was that.
This present knowledge generation needs more. With the Internet providing at one’s fingertips data and more data, any creature of cinema demands to be also mightily explained. Thus, the seductive charm of Dracula Untold—which is to tell. At last, here is a film that will not only explain why Dracula became a monster, but also justify his nature as a vampire.
Tough as it is already the first task of creating a history of Dracula, the second job of compelling us to believe in the goodness of his evil is even more daunting. Dracula Untold conquers these two tasks and does even more.
The lesson begins with the history of Dracula. It is an account set on layers of geopolitics and colonialism and lots and lots of romance and love.
The film is a spectacle from beginning to end. Grand opera is the inspiration of the production design. On a reconnaissance up on the mountains, Prince Vlad discovers a cave. In there lives a Master Vampire who kills all the men of the Prince. Vlad survives; something in him has also changed. Even his wife discovers it.
A grand dinner is set to celebrate the many years of peace in Transylvania despite the looming presence of the Turks. In the middle of that dinner, emissaries from the Turks come to the castle. Vlad offers them silver coins, thinking that they are after the tribute. The Turks don’t need the tribute.
The Sultan demands 1,000 boys as before. The Sultan wants to train the boys because when you start ‘em young, they are not afraid to kill and are ready always to die for their king. We realize that Vlad himself grew up in this kind of conscription. There is brotherhood between him and the Turks and it is bonded by blood and violence.
The Sultan wants also Vlad’s son. When the threat of the attack from the Turks is imminent and the defeat of Transylvania predictable, Vlad goes back to the mountains and enters a pact with the Master Vampire.
Many admirers of the story of Dracula flinch at this heresy, this shameless act of creating a new, different origin myth of one of the most feared of film monsters. Many in the audience, however, are also convinced that the story of an invincible leader who, because he cares for his people, enters into a kind of social contract with Evil is odd and quirky. That this prince is able to use that supernatural force to defeat an otherwise unbeatable foe makes one think and rethink about how smaller countries strategize and deal with other black political forces, inviting us further to gaze at metaphors in the world of wars. This feeling engendered by the film is nevertheless amusing.
In the cave, the Master Vampire sniffs at Vlad and tells the prince that he shows no fear but hope. And that hope comes from despair. These are terrific lines that we don’t expect to hear in gothic tales. But this Dracula does not really belong to darkness but to light and the future and in the lair of love.
When the final battle between Dracula and the Turks ensues, we see ourselves rallying behind the vampire. In that war we witness the debut of the mythological vampire who becomes one when he releases the other. The two would cross paths in the future and then we would not regret our full support to Dracula.
As the film ends, Transylvania is saved from a colonizing force. The tiny state becomes a wedge and stops the march of the Turks to more decimation of states and kingdoms. The son of Dracula is enthroned by the church and the son, far from the vampire franchise of the 1960s, is not expected to be a Vampire. Vlad/Dracula becomes immortal and is the sign of hope in this vampire report. In the future, Dracula would live in the city. Somewhere in that stony horizon, the Master Vampire who also lives in the urban setting seethes with envy. He has not left the cave. Somewhere, Dracula will find love. He may suck the blood out of beings or he may just bite. But Dracula will always stand for love greater than any other love.
Luke Evans is a master actor in the role of a vampire. He exudes machismo that not even a thousand bats can dissipate. He loves and he decays and, during moments that mortals are about to defeat him, we hope no one succeeds to bury a stake into that loving heart. In the untold story of Dracula, the human beings are boring and disloyal. Luke Evans is responsible for that shift in loyalty in us mortals.
We await for Luke Evans/Dracula to show us the way again in this post-modern world, where humans are losing their humanity because vampires have become more endearing and unafraid to fall in love.