NEW Dracula 3-legacy (DVD)

Move over Blade, there is a new vampire franchise in town. Tired of slick, over-produced horror movies like Underworld? Look no further. Dracula III: Legacy is the latest installment in a surprisingly durable franchise. Director Patrick Lussier has been quietly picking up the slack from a now dormant John Carpenter by making straightforward, atmospheric B-horror movies.

Jason Scott Lee is surprisingly effective as a driven vampire hunter. Armed with a nasty looking scythe, he is a very efficient (and cool) killer of the undead. He wouldn't be out of place in a Carpenter film as one of the auteur's trademark, enigmatic men-of-action, like Snake Plissken in Escape from New York. In contrast to Lee's no-nonsense character, Jason London is the easy-going sidekick that provides the film's doses of comic relief. These two actors have come a long way from films like Dragon (Lee) and Mallrats (London) to form an excellent duo.

Dracula III features a good balance of cool characters, the right amount of exposition and a beefed up vampire presence that was lacking from Dracula II. This last installment of the trilogy captures a modern gothic atmosphere beautifully, putting other contemporary Hollywood horror movies to shame. The heir apparent to John Carpenter's legacy has been found and it should be interesting to see what Lussier does next.

There is an audio commentary by writer/director Patrick Lussier, producer/co-writer Joel Soisson and special makeup designer Gary Tunnicliffe. This is chatty track as the three men discuss their movie and the challenges of shooting on a budget.

"A Conversation with Patrick Lussier on the Mythology of Vampires." The director was fascinated by the depiction of vampires all over the world and in particular Romania's Vlad the Impaler and Bram Stoker's take on the legend.

"A Conversation with Special Makeup Designer Gary J. Tunnicliffe." He talks about the hardships of working in the cold weather of Romania and how he had to ship in fake blood and reassemble the plastic weapons because they kept breaking in the cold weather.

"Cast Auditions" features footage of four of the supporting cast members who were taken from Europe.

"Deleted Scene-Flat Tire" features our heroes fixing a flat tire and encountering some undead along the way.

Also included is an "Alternate Ending" that features a much more upbeat ending than what is in the existing version.

For dedicated fans of this franchise there are the original story treatments for all three movies that allow one to see them in their early stages and how Lussier initially envisioned them.

Finally, there are trailers for the first two Dracula movies.

Although the title might suggest otherwise, "Dracula III: The Legacy" is not the final part of a trilogy but rather the second half of a story begun in "Dracula II: The Ascension." In other words, you do not need to go back to "Dracula 2000," because there is really nothing in that movie that has anything to do with these other two. This may or may not have anything to do with the audacious but rather ludicrous idea that the reason vampires loath Christian symbols is that Dracula is really (wait for it) Judas Iscariot, but except for the fact that at the end of "Dracula 2000" the title character is a charred corpse and at the start of "Dracula II" he is a charred corpse, there is really nothing else to connect the dots (and for what it is worth, yes, I buy the explanation for why Dracula looks different in each of these films).

When we go to the "to be continued" end of "Dracula II," Luke (Jason London) is desperate to find out what happened to the woman of his affections, Elizabeth Blaine (Diane Neal). Luke is traveling with Father Uffizi (Jason Scott Lee), a vampire killer who uses a scythe to decapitate the undead. Uffizi remains at odds with the Church because his superior, Cardinal Siqueros (Roy Scheider), insists that the goal is not just to kill vampires but to try saving their souls as well. Father Uffizi and Luke are making their way through the Romanian countryside where they have to worry not only about vampires, but revolutionaries and other people with guns. They discover a British TV reporter, Julia Hughes (Alexandra Westcourt), who though she was covering the war but has stumbled upon Dracula's plot to use the locals to stock his blood cellar. The whole concern about the scientific properties of vampire blood and the emphasis on all of those ancient Eastern European superstitions regarding vampires now take a back seat to rescuing Elizabeth and stopping the orgy of blood sucking taking place over at the Dracula place.

This 2005 film is again directed by Patrick Lussier, who co-wrote the script with Joel Soisson. Lee is certainly a compelling lead figure, and London manages to provide the comic relief without becoming laughable in the wrong way, but the problem is that in a Dracula movie the big bad vampire should pop up for more than the conclusion. Granted, the film really is more about Uffizi to the point where you wonder why it has to be a Dracula film. But then it would be too much of a Blade rip-off. At this point it reminds me more of the "Hellraiser" direct to video releases where Pinhead usually shows up just at the end. If you are going to go this route then you really need the journey to be a lot more interesting, but what we have here is nothing like going off to see Marlon Brando in "Apocalypse Now."

Lussier filmed both "Dracula II" and "Dracula III" at the same time in Romania, but for some reason I have not bothered to investigate we have had to wait all this time for this direct to video release. The production values are pretty good (you get your money's worth in Romania apparently) and I liked doing a contemporary film back on Dracula's home turf. But Rutger Hauer is not simply wasted, his performance is counter-productive. Ultimately the whole idea here is that Uffizi is arriving at a personal crucible, and the Dracula he finds at the end is not worthy of the moment, especially given the ending they want to go with for the movie (I was going to say for the series as well, but who knows: they might be trying to squeeze a few quarts of blood out of this storyline).

I was very pleased with the first two movies in this series and was hopeful that part three would deliver. It did. Legacy is a fine third chapter that really entertains. Sure I wish that filmakers had been given more money for another theatrical release BUT that's a minor quibble. Legacy and the first two movies make a very satisfying trilogy that many horror fans should appreciate. This is one of the best modern horror series.