Seems that yet again this movie is a case of you'll either love it or hate it. It's a movie that takes a more unusual and artistic approach to its story, which makes this clearly not a movie for just everyone.
As it often turns out, I don't mind movies taking a bit of a more artistic and unusual approach to its story. It often makes the movie a very compelling watch, even when you don't really fully understand what is going on.
But as far as somewhat more artistic movies go, this movie is mostly perfectly understandable and easy to follow, since it might be somewhat pretentious with its style at times, it isn't with its story luckily. It makes this a pretty accessible movie, so also don't let the name David Lynch scare you off. His name got mostly put on the cover to cash in on it but his involvement with this movie was very minimal, though you could still really tell that director Michael Almereyda really admires David Lynch and his style.
Basically you could see this movie as a modern take on the Dracula story, or rather said the story of the official Dracula sequel "Dracula's Daughter", from 1936, which isn't that well liked but was a movie I still absolutely loved. Perhaps that's also who I still really liked this movie as well. It strays away from the original Dracula story but I really don't mind that. There are so many different versions and interpretations of the original Dracula story out there, so I'm glad that this movie is featuring a story of its own, with still all of the familiar characters in it, such as the count himself (though very shortly), Van Helsing and Renfield.
But even though the movie is mostly a compelling watch, it still isn't that interesting of a movie. I mean, it's one you could easily do without and one that even makes a bit of a pointless impression. It sounds strange, since I was still definitely enjoying it while watching. Perhaps it also was because I was starting to loose a bit interest at times, especially toward its end. You could say that the movie keeps building up to a climax or satisfying conclusion, that just never comes.
It's not a movie that's not only heavy on its style but also really on its atmosphere. I though that the movie did a great job at creating a sort of old fashioned horror atmosphere, even though never anything scary or anything else horror related ever really happens in the movie itself.
It was also real great to see Peter Fonda in this. He played a great Van Helsing and he even plays Dracula as well, while he was at it. He plays both parts quite differently, so some people might not even realize it's the same guy.
A very stylish and atmospheric movie but I can understand if you don't like it.
7/10
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