Directed by Gary Shore. Written by Burk Sharpless and Matt Sazama. Starring Luke Evans, Sarah Gadon, Art Parkinson, Dominic Cooper, Charles Dance, William Houston, Noah Huntley, Paul Kaye, Ferdinand Kingsley and Thor Kristjansson.
Plot: The infamous Vlad III, must become a monster in order to protect his family, his kingdom and his people.
This movie is really good. Not completely historically accurate, but who said it was? It takes place mostly in the 15th century, where Vlad III (Evans) is the Prince of Wallachia and Transylvania. As a child he was taken to the Ottoman Empire by the Sultan and trained to be a ruthless soldier. After becoming the most feared warrior and earning the monikers, “Vlad the Impaler” and “Son of the Dragon”, he became upset with his own actions and the actions of the empire, and abandoned both the Sultan and his training.
Years later, as the prince of a country the Ottoman Empire is creeping in on, he turns back to his warrior ways to fight the very people who trained him. The newest Sultan, Mehmed II (Cooper), comes into Vlad’s territory very disrespectfully, demanding that he receive “a tribute” of 1,000 boys that must come with him to be trained as Vlad once was. He even demands that Vlad’s own son, Ingeras (Parkinson), be one of them. His wife, Mirena (Gadon), justifiably, refuses and breaks down.
A little earlier in the movie, Vlad and some of his men had been attacked by a weird “creature” in a cave. He is later told by Brother Lucian (Kaye), a local monk, that the thing that attacked them was once a man, but was now a vampire. Knowing the power of this Master Vampire (Dance), Vlad goes to him for help. The vampire allows him to drink his blood, which will give him vampiric powers for exactly three days. Unless, of course, he succumbs to the desire to drink human blood. If he drinks blood that is human within these three days, he will become a vampire forever.
Having transformed, Vlad returns to the castle and singlehandedly kills the Ottoman soldiers. Later that same night, a larger army approaches the castle and Vlad sends a swarm of bats to repel them. This army is just a decoy though. Another set of Turks invade the castle, killing many and kidnapping others, including Ingeras. Vlad, finally realizing he’s been tricked, races back to the castle, but only in time to watch as his wife falls to her death after being pushed off a cliff. At the bottom, as she is dying, she tells Vlad to drink from her, so that he may remain a vampire and have the strength to get their only son back. So, he does.
Ingeras is rescued. Mehmed does die. A lot of dead people are seen on spikes as the history suggests Vlad did to like, everyone. However, I need to talk for a second about the actual story of Vlad because it’s much more interesting than most people have talked about. Firstly, Vlad was trained by the Ottoman Empire after he was kidnapped with his brother. Eventually though, his brother AND his father were killed by the very people training him to be a warrior. When he was eventually “released” by them, he gained some power, but then lost it, before regaining the power and the land we now know he had.
Because of what the Ottoman Empire did to him and his family, Vlad promised his people that he would always protect them if they were ever invaded. He is quoted as saying “When a prince is strong he can have peace when he wants it, but if he is weak, they will come and do what they want to him.” Since he wouldn’t allow that to happen, he first killed the people responsible for his family’s pain. Then, he went to war with the empire and killed thousands, including woman and children. Hilariously, at some point he was arrested and imprisoned by Catholics. He spent 14 years in a prison, until he finally agreed to become a Catholic himself.
Vlad regained power in what is now Romania, even without the help of an army. When he was eventually killed by the Turks (bastards!), they cut up his body and the Sultan had his head placed on a spike for all to see. His burial place was unknown for a long time. When they thought they had found it once, in a monastery, they dug it up, but found no bones. Cue the Twilight Zone music. Years and years later, many things were written about Vlad that were heavily exaggerated, especially when written by Saxons and others of particular religions. I am in no way on Vlad’s side of history when choosing to kill women and children who weren’t warriors at all, but I have to admit that his story is actually much more tragic than I knew about. Honestly he may not have been the monster we believe him to be at all.
In saying all that, I like this story better than Stoker’s Dracula. It’s more entertaining and less cliche. This gives him a motive. A very powerful motive. The rules were then followed exceptionally, the effects were so well done, the cast was remarkable and the direction was stellar as well. DJ particularly loved the “bat fight”. And I realize Luke is gay, but damn, is he nice to look at. DJ doesn’t even usually like vampire movies and he nearly loved this. We both did. We highly recommend it.
My score: 77. DJ’s score: 78.
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