Dracula 2001

Dracula's nemesis Van Helsing keeps the remains of the undying and apparently indestructible vampire in a heavily guarded vault. Unfortunately Van Helsing's caution doesn't extend to the staff of his antiques business. His assistant, Solina, leads a gang of thieves into the vault and, inevitably, an accidental blood spill reanimates Dracula.

Dracula transforms the thieves into his vampire minions and leads them to New Orleans in search of Van Helsing's estranged daughter, Mary Heller, hotly pursued by the vampire hunter.

"Wes Craven presents"... a film by someone you've never heard of... that's been retitled from Dracula 2000 for this belated UK release.

First impressions are not good. And first impressions are right.

Dracula 2001 is bad in just about every way. Most of the responsibility has to lie with director/writer/co-editor Patrick Lussier. Can't direct, can't write, can edit a little (he was editor on the Scream series) seems a fair summation of his limited talents.

The cast can do little with banal dialogue that veers haphazardly between the throw-away and the portentous.

Only Christopher Plummer as Van Helsing, sporting an even more over-the-top accent than Anthony Hopkins did in Bram Stoker's Dracula, and Jennifer Esposito, oozing sultry sexiness as Bride of Dracula number 1, manage to rise above the material. The other, mostly younger, members of the cast are helpless.

The direction is by-the-numbers and heavy-handed. The plentiful action sequences aren't themselves all that bad, but inevitably suffer in comparison with the bar-raising likes of The Matrix and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

And I hadn't even mentioned the incredibly blatant product placement for a company whose name I won't mention, just to prevent them getting any more cheap advertising.

You have been warned.