Dracula (2002)

Infobox Film
name = Dracula
aka "Dracula's Curse"
"Il Bacio di Dracula"


caption = DVD cover
director = Roger Young
producer = Roberta Cadringher
Paolo De Crescenzo
Ferdinand Dohna
Michele Greco
Paolo Lucidi
writer = Roger Young
starring = Patrick Bergin
Giancarlo Giannini
Stefania Rocca
Muriel Baumeister
Hardy Krüger Jr.
Kai Wiesinger
music = Harald Kloser
Thomas Wanker
editing = Alessandro Lucidi
distributor =
broadcast =
runtime = 104 min
country = Italy
language = English
imdb_id = 0287846
budget =

"Dracula" was an Italian TV movie made in 2002.

Tagline: An Ancient terror lives on in a new world.

Cast

* Patrick Bergin (Count Dracula)
* Giancarlo Giannini (Dr. Enrico Valenzi)
* Hardy Krüger Jr. (Jonathan Harker)
* Stefania Rocca (Mina)
* Muriel Baumeister (Lucy)
* Kai Wiesinger (Dr. John Seward)
* Alessio Boni (Quincy)
* Conrad Hornby (Arthur Holmwood)
* Brett Forest (Renfield)

Plot summary

At a ballroom of a hospital charity party in Budapest, the successful American lawyer Jonathan Harker (Hardy Krüger Jr.) suddenly proposes to his girlfriend Mina (Stefania Rocca). He wants to marry her within the week. Their friends Lucy (Muriel Baumaster), Quincy (Alessio Boni) and Arthur (Conrad Hornby) have been invited by Jonathan and have just arrived for the wedding, all without Mina's awareness. Meanwhile, they meet the promoter of the party, the psychiatrist Dr. Seward (Kai Wiesinger). Later in the same night, Jonathan is called by a rich client, Tepes (Patrick Bergin), who hires him to prepare the inventory of the wealth of his uncle, the count Vladislav Tepes (Patrick Bergin), in Romania. Jonathan travels to the Carpathian Mountains in his Porsche, has an accident and finally arrives in the count's old castle.

Vlad Tepes, here caling himself Count Vladislav Tepes, decides to leave his castle and move to the west. He says he feels tired from Rumania's decline and the seclusion of his life.

In Budapest he discusses some illegal business with Harker. He also wants Jonathan's help in turning his collection of paintings, jewels and his gold deposits to cash. Jonathan's friends businessman Quincey Morris, specialising in money swindles, and Arthur Holmwood, a British diplomat who is in a debt, offer to help. Though Jonathan and Arthur have their doubts about the deal Quincey convinces them that money is all that matters and its one true power that makes the world go around.Dracula gets very interested in those young peopole--the men, hungry for money and power; Lucy, who wants to sleep in many beds, in many cities , have new experiences and live for ever; and Mina' who wants to change the world and end human suffering. Throughout the film Dracula tries to seduce all five of them into his own world, make them wish to become vampires. Focusing again and again on how hyprotical morality is and promising them the loss of their consciences, he says survival of the fittest is the proper way and even the strong cannot save the weak. He also references God's slaughters in the Bible to prove that humanity was created in his image, the image of a killer.

There to stop him is the researcher of the occult and Seward's teacher Dr. Enrico Valenzi the one who believes that Dracula can be defeated when he faces a strong will empowered by faith. But throughout this film he raises more and more self-doubts and his will is almost broken by the end.

Its Mina, half-way through her transformation to a vampire, that manages to make Dracula trust her and kills him as he holds her in an embrace.The films end with Mina still having the vampire's mark and how that affects is remain a question.

Deviations from the novel

This list is not exhaustive, but intended to convey a sense of the differences between the film and the novel:
* The setting is shifted to the early twenty-first century and Hungary.
* Mina kills Dracula.
* Dracula actively tries to recruit the men as well as the women as vampires, evidently with some kind of Armageddon in mind.
* The character of Van Helsing is omitted, replaced by Dr. Enrico Valenzi.

External links

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