Dracula Untold

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Vampire Owl :: Do we need extra horror after Annabelle?

Vampire Bat :: No, its Dracula special. We made a promise to Uncle Dracula. Remember?

Vampire Owl :: But we will end up with an overdose of horror here.

Vampire Bat :: There is nothing like an overdose of horror. It is part of our daily lives. And this one won’t scare us at all, as the genre is different.

Vampire Owl :: I hope we can recommend this to Uncle Dracula.

Vampire Bat :: We have to watch it whatever happens. It is the only English movie in the local theatres now.

Vampire Owl :: I wish they had released these movies on different dates. This is more of a collision which will damage both these movies.

Vampire Bat :: Only if there was no stupid Bang Bang! last weekend. Annabelle might have come earlier.

Vampire Owl :: See, this Bollywood is the source of all evil.

Vampire Bat :: I have known it since Dhoom 2 and Besharam made me certain about it with enough support from Dhoom 3 and Krrish 3.

[Gets the tickets].

What is it about? :: The tale of the vampire begins with the man, a prince of Transylvania who is ruling his world in peace as a kingdom giving tribute to the Ottoman Empire. But things change as the Sultan asks for thousand boys from his kingdom as a tribute to be part of their slave army so as to conquer the whole of Europe. Vlad the Impaler (Luke Evans) cannot agree to his demand, and as requested by his wife Mirena (Sarah Gadon), decides to save the boys from doom as he takes up arms against the huge Turkish army. As he understands the stupidity behind his own decision, climbs a mountain which is supposed to have ancient evil within it, and asks the creature inside the cave which had killed a number of Turkish scouts for help. The creature is actually one of the most evil emperors of all time turned vampire, Caligula (Charles Dance), grants him vampirism for three days during which he will have the vampiric abilities and certain weaknesses, but have to control his thirst for blood; in failing to do so will turn him into a vampire forever.

Positives and Negatives :: Dracula is our favourite vampire, at least for most of us, and here we have an origin tale rather than the usual bloodsucker story. Unlike what some people were expecting, Dracula Untold is not packed with horror – one has to wonder why were people so sure about the same? Even the director himself had said that this was more of a drama with elements of action and adventure. The last battle is a little overdone with vampirism, but other than that, the special effects are amazing, especially the effects of bats, dark clouds, impalings, transformations and the Gothic atmosphere that has been successfully created. May be they could have added more innovation and removed the predictability factor, as we know what would happen to the prince already. There have been many types of vampires and Dracula, and there is Luke Evans. It is he who controls this movie with a brilliant performance. Sarah Gadon is also stunningly good in her character of faith and hope, while Dominic Cooper makes a nice villain.

Soul exploration I :: Dracula, the hero against the empire :: The age of empires does sound awesome as a computer game, but otherwise, it is a bloody case of cruelty and brutal subjugation, which doesn’t end in just a conquest. The case of one country extending its domain over another through war is nothing less than a permanent ill-treatment of a future generation, as what the Ottoman Empire does in this movie is nothing different, and there is no empire on Earth which is not built on the blood of the innocent. Here, Dracula is a man of the people, and even as a prince of his small kingdom, he has known the life of someone worse than a common man, as he was taken by the Turks at his early age to be part of the Janissary – an elite infantry unit made of slaves recruited by the Sultan from the Other. He stands up against the ill-treatment of his people in a desire for equal value of human life. He automatically becomes the symbol against imperialism and brutal power.

Soul exploration II :: Dracula, the superhero of the grey side :: Going back to the origins, our villain is still the hero, who has made one fatal decision which would make him a tragic hero, as he ponders over that question which have haunted Hamlet for such a long time, to be or not be (or to drink or not to drink) as he is caught in those stages of transformation into a vampire where he could be immortal in one of the two ways possible. He is neither good or evil there, and in that situation of the grey, he stumbles upon that incident which would turn him into dark grey. He is a man caught in a world of good and evil, where the grey has no position, or has to forcibly embrace the black, or the evil. Dracula is a man of our age, and we know that he could have survived better if lived a long time after his time of existence, and he was not the hero whom his world deserved. History rarely keeps grey characters as it praises only the victors, but we know that there would have been an abundance of them.

Soul exploration III :: Dracula, the villain of the night and darkness :: Dracula’s situation and his descend in forced upon him, but his voluntary decision to choose what he thought was necessary evil against pure evil would become the ultimate evil in more than one way. He becomes a lot like Faustus by selling his soul to the devil, and another Faustian tragic hero has his roots. But with the scope left for a sequel, and those words “let the games begin” reveal to us that we haven’t seen the final shade of this man to which Luke Evans has given another life. Even in his worst situation, Dracula is just dark grey, and his further passing down to the darkness hasn’t occured, which should not be interesting for a lot of people, but my request for such people would be to wait. Dracula is immortal, and this is just the beginning – you have a lot to look out for, and the ending does seems to connect with the style of the 1992 movie Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Yes, this is a good re-telling, and not another copy of whatever you see everywhere these days.

How it finishes :: Dracula Untold is not your typical vampire story, and neither is it something that will give you scares every night. Those who wish to see the fangs of terror riding high, as well as those who were hoping for the eternal Twilight style fake love story are going to be disappointed. This was never a horror movie in its core, and this origin story of the greatest vampire of all time, is rather what you can call Dracula Begins, and will work just like Batman Begins as a beginning and a pillar to bring on something like The Dark Knight. This is not a vampire attack tale either, but a preface to the vampire world to which we are to enter. So, if you needed a lot of blood sucking and marks on lots of necks, you would need to check one of those earlier movies which are closer to the Bram Stoker work, rather than going for this. It should be why the word “untold” is added to the title, not to look for those usual bloodsucker tales here. This is highly recommended for the fans of vampire mythology, and I doubt about its effect on normal people; work your intellect and think differently, may be this can work better.

Release date: 10th October 2014
Running time: 92 minutes
Directed by: Gary Shore
Starring: Luke Evans, Sarah Gadon, Samantha Barks, Dominic Cooper, Art Parkinson, Charles Dance, Charlie Cox, William Houston, Ferdinand Kingsley, Noah Huntley, Dilan Gwyn, Zach McGowan, Ronan Vibert, Diarmaid Murtagh, Thor Kristjansson, Joseph Long, Damien Kivlehan

draculauntold

@ Cemetery Watch
✠ The Vampire Bat.

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41 thoughts on “Dracula Untold”

  5. Nice review. As always your vampire bat and owl conversations are interesting and humorous. Dracula movies are always great fun to watch. I love Dracula and other superhero movies, there is more depth to their stories than other genres. 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    • Thanks 🙂 Yes, there is so much scope for developing something around Dracula, as he is one special character, and the way in which the novel is written leaves chances for more questions and imaginations 🙂 As for the other superhero stuff, how Marvel uses them these days is something I admire 😀

      Liked by 1 person

      • Yes precisely, the movie doesn’t end with the end..we can take it with us..and wherever we like it too..it respects our intelligence.. 😀 Yes Marvel is truly admirable 🙂

        Liked by 1 person

      • Especially when it entertains and comes up with such visual splendour along with respecting our intelligence – not really something we can see in the stranger superhero movies like Krrish 3 and those other Bollywood super action flims 😀

        Liked by 1 person

      • Yes I agree with you.. I don’t understand why they waste money and time and make a fool out of themselves, these days even primary kids won’t want to watch them. 😀 They seem to have higher tastes…It amazes me when they talk like that.. 😀

        Liked by 1 person

      • Hope the kids don’t get too much of the evil villain mastermind stuff and try to be the Joker or Ra’s al Ghul 😀
        It is good to see that Malayalam movie industry have grown up from those silly superstar movie stuff, but unfortunately, Bollywood is getting so much more of the same, and they make crores :O 😀

        Liked by 1 person

      • Yes Malayalam movies are way ahead, even Tamil is okay, we have some good Marathi movies too which make sense even though of small budget.
        Ya..right about the kids..but we can’t help it..the kids are way too smarter … we can’t control them anymore.. 😀 But I feel they have an intelligence of their own to come out of any mess..!! I really envy them..I wish I was a teen now …:D

        Liked by 1 person

      • I wish I don’t become a teen again, I will end up trailing in almost everything, except for may be preaching about some weird things nobody is interested in 😀

        There were people coming to the theatre with family plus little kids to watch Annabelle – you see the confidence in them 😀 😀

        Liked by 1 person

      • Recently a month or two back I saw a punjabi movie by Gurdas Mann, Wazir Shah Ishq Da Waris out of curosity, wanted a change from the boring baseless hindi movies, I was surprized to see that it was a great movie..no wonder it was nominated by Oscar. Although I couldn’t understand much, but yet with my hindi..I did undestand it. With great acting and singing by Gurdas Mann. 🙂 I saw it on youtube. Fortunately I watched it, as I don’t know how long its going to be there on youtube..! It was a short budget simple movie, but great movie.

        Liked by 1 person

      • I do have a long list of movies to watch, but things go slowly these days, and as far as Punjabi movies are concerned, I would need detailed subtitles 😀

        Not much into the smaller screen these days; too much of theatre visits 😀

        Like

  6. Yeah we need to see more horror, and did you see the picture of that guy? That´s a cool Dracula, this one should be a good watch. Just by seeing the picture and that is says horror. I´m in when it comes to my country.

    Liked by 1 person

  8. Loved your reasoning(:…you wrote brilliantly…good analysys…yes this is that movie’s whose trailer I liked but I did not know many inner details which makes this story more well refined… well I think that temporary vampire did actually drink blood): and though it is a story I know it would be impossible to bear thirst of any kind, I was water vampire sometime ago and was thinking a lot on how vampires would feel…but the only vampire in real life is the mosquito ofcourse… first if there is one book I know you would love is Bram Stoker’s, it is awesome(: infact brilliant, the movie version sucks because they made a fake love connection there with Mina and the Dracula… anyway seems like a sort of movie I would like no bloodsucking… and very thought provoking… we always as humans want to live for ever unnaturally, even if it does not give us happiness…we led up selling sould to devil thinking of our own good comfort and good…anyway well writen… I think generally your reveiws are good too and indepth(: not something I cannot trust…you potray the wider picture so reader knows what to expect(:

    Liked by 1 person

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