Dracula 2000
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| Dracula 2000 aka "Dracula 2001" |
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| Directed by | Patrick Lussier |
| Produced by | Wes Craven |
| Written by | Joel Soisson |
| Starring | Gerard Butler Christopher Plummer Jonny Lee Miller Jennifer Esposito Justine Waddell |
| Music by | Marco Beltrami |
| Editing by | Peter Devaney Flanagan |
| Country |  United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | unknown |
| Followed by | Dracula II: Ascension |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Dracula 2000 (also known as Dracula 2001 in some countries) is a horror movie which attempts to transfer the story of Dracula into the setting of a modern teen horror film. With a cast of pop culture stars, including possibly the youngest actor to portray Dracula in a major motion picture, the film was profitable. The film's only real distinguishing feature from other vampire movies is a unique story for Dracula's origins. The film was produced by Dimension Films and Neo Art & Logic. Veteran horror film director Wes Craven was executive producer and his long time editor, Patrick Lussier, directed the film. Joel Soisson is credited with the screenplay, with the story by Soisson and Lussier. However, the film went through numerous uncredited rewrites by Scott Derrickson & Paul Harris Boardman and Ehren Krueger.
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[edit] Cast
- Gerard Butler as Dracula/Judas Iscariot
- Christopher Plummer as Matthew/Abraham Van Helsing
- Jonny Lee Miller as Simon Sheppard
- Justine Waddell as Mary Heller/Van Helsing
- Danny Masterson as Nightshade
- Jeri Ryan as Valerie Sharpe
- Colleen Fitzpatrick (aka Vitamin C) as Lucy Westerman
- Jennifer Esposito as Solina
- Lochlyn Munro as Eddie
- Sean Patrick Thomas as Trick
- Omar Epps as Marcus
- Tig Fong as Dax
- Tony Munch as Charlie
- Shane West as J.T.
[edit] Overview
The film opens in present-day London, with a group of thieves infiltrating the antique shop Carfax Abbey. Penetrating into its innermost vault they expect to find a fortune in treasure. Instead they encounter a sealed coffin. Upon attempting to move the coffin, some of the treasure-hunting party are gruesomely killed by the vault's security system, leading the survivors to believe the coffin is the treasure they have come for. It is no surprise when the coffin is later revealed to contain the dormant body of Count Dracula. We learn that Carfax Abbey (also the name of Dracula's London residence in Bram Stoker's original novel) is owned and operated by Dracula's nemesis, Abraham Van Helsing, who, after trapping and subduing Dracula a century before, has been keeping himself alive with injections of the vampire's blood filtered through leeches until he can find a way to destroy Dracula forever.
While flying the coffin back to the United States one of the thieves manage to open the coffin, releasing Dracula. The count proceeds to feast on the blood of the thieves, one of whom happen to be flying the airplane, causing them to crash in the swamps of Louisiana. Surviving the crash, he heads to New Orleans, Louisiana, where Van Helsing's estranged daughter Mary and her best friend Lucy live.
Meanwhile Van Helsing and his assistant Simon head to the U.S. to stop Dracula from releasing his horrors onto the world again.
The one significant twist this film brings to the Dracula legend is its explanation of his origin. In this film, Dracula is portrayed as being in fact Judas Iscariot, cursed to walk the earth as an immortal for his betrayal of Jesus being rejected from admission to both Heaven and Hell. This explains some of the vampire's best-known weaknesses quite neatly, primarily Christian iconography and silver, as Judas was paid in silver for handing Christ over to the Roman authorities. Although Bram Stoker makes no reference to a vulnerability to silver in his novel, it is a part of some examples of European vampire folklore.
[edit] Trivia
- At one point in the movie Lucy Westerman stands in front of a display of CDs by the actress who portrays her.
- During the Mardi Gras parade there is a giant mask of Bela Lugosi's version of Dracula.
- This movie has numerous references to both Dracula the novel and other movie versions.
- Lucy Westerman is similar to Lucy Westenra.
- Van Helsing's business Carfax Abbey has the same name as Dracula's English residence.
- One of the doctors examining Solina is named Dr. Seward.
- On being offered a drink, Dracula quips "I don't drink... coffee," which is very similar to Bela Lugosi's line "I never drink... wine" in Dracula (1931).
- The sexual relationship between Dracula and Mary is questionned, in the end, whether or not they were in love. This refers to Francis Ford Coppola's filmed version in 1992 where Dracula (Gary Oldman) is in fact in love with Mina Harker (Winona Ryder).
- When the crashed plane is found by authorities, the dead pilot has been lashed to the yoke. This references the captain of the Demeter, wich brought Dracula to London, who was found dead and lashed to the ship's wheel.
- The film's rock soundtrack (referring to the songs used in the film, not just the Compact Disc compilation of those songs) is significant for two reasons: the first being that it included the song "One Step Closer," as performed by Linkin Park, before it was released as a single and subsequently became a hit, and the second being that it included a pre-Toxicity (and, by the same measure, pre-popularity) System of a Down's cover of the Berlin classic, "The Metro."
- Jonny Lee Miller is called Simon, which is also his name in the cult-classic Trainspotting, though he is referred as Sick-Boy throughout the movie.
- At one point, Butler, exhausted from several night-only shoots, mentioned to the director that he hadn't expected to be shooting so late. The director smiled at him and said "It's a Dracula movie, Gerry. Did you really think we'd be shooting days?", which -as Butler says it- put him right in his place.
- The line "Never, ever fuck with an antiques dealer!" was actually a joke that Johnny Lee Miller made up throughout filming. The director liked it so much that he added it to the film.
