Plot
A group of medical students find out that the barbequed
dead body that they have just received is in fact a vampire and set about trying
to resurrect the monster in a remote location so that they can study it
and use it's blood to cure one of their own from a crippling disease. However
they don't account for a priest-turned-vampire hunter who has been tracking the
infamous Dracula and believes that he has found his body to destroy once and for
all.
Review
Dracula 2001 wasn't particularly enthralling,
especially after seeing something like Blade. However horror films with
any medium of success in the cinemas must mean that a slew of straight-to-video
sequels, which have little to no relevance to the original, will be rattled out.
"Cashing in" as you would call it in any other walk of life. Sometimes they're
alright but most of the time they're just poor imitations or remakes with a
lower budget. When you get gullible fools like me rushing to the shelves to rent
or buy them when they get released, you'd think I have no right to complain!
Anyway enough ranting because all of the ranting in the world isn't going to
make Dracula II: The Ascension any more bearable.
The criminal thing that this film does is wets our appetite with a kick ass
opening scene in Romania involving the bad ass (and best part of the film by a
mile) Jason Scott Lee as the priest-turned-vampire hunter who dispatches two
vampires with some weapons that Blade himself would be proud of. However the
film suddenly shifts gears to the team of medical students and the rather dull
plot of them trying to resurrect Dracula to use his blood to cure their sick
comrade. The priest reappears a few times throughout the film but he's never
given enough screen time considering the explosive start he made. Talk about
pulling the rug from underneath you. Also given that the film is about Dracula,
it seems stupid to keep him locked up for about three quarters of the running
time but that's exactly what happens here as the Count is chained up for most of
the film, only escaping towards the end to set up the inevitable sequel (which
was filmed at the same time at this one and involves the same cast and crew).
From a technical point of view, the film is up to scratch. It's got a lot of
style going for it, with slow motion action scenes, plenty of blood and some
moody sets (the opening in Romania is great - the film should have been set
here). It's not on for too long and the film tries to keep the pace going with
an odd twist and turn thrown around. But the problem is that no one cares less
about it. The characters are terrible save for the priest and the plot is just
an excuse to keep the cast down to minimum by setting it in some remote lab.
Ideas were obviously being banded around between the writers but in the end they
just ditched them all for a pointless story which goes nowhere.
As I've said, the best bit of the film is Jason
Scott Lee. He owns the screen every time he is on but that's maybe because
there's not a lot else to go off. The student cast just waste their times and
mine with inept performances, the extremely wooden Craig Sheffer being a
particular culprit. Stephen Billington takes over the role of Dracula from
Gerard Butler (couldn't see him wanting to get the fangs back on after hitting
it big, can you?) but he looks like a catalogue model gone wrong with his stupid
bleached blonde hair. And even Roy Scheider, with his name so visible on the
front cover, is given maybe twenty seconds of screen time as a blind cardinal
giving advice. Talk about an easy pay day.
Verdict
Dracula II: The Ascension has some neat points but
just had no clue what to do with them. The character of Father Uffizi is quality
and kicks ass but he's totally wasted in this pointless sequel which offers
nothing and delivers even less.
