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| "Argento's Dracula" (2012) |
“A very nice number it is, too.”
She giggles lowly into her hand. “Not too much, not too little. Just enough to
let your night fly right.”
You pull back.
She tugs you closer, her words
now dripping into your mind like warm honey. “Want to see?” she purrs.
You can’t resist.
She smiles as she knows she’s
won, and gently tilts your head up to the small ticker of numbers lighting her
dark, dark sky.
You look and see…
3,022 words
Your world grays out for a tick
and the woman at your arm disappears.
Was she ever really there?
The end.
--
Admittedly, I have no excuse for whatever that was. Apologies seem so
trite after that, but you have them. Do with them as you wish. Just know that
3,022 words of my “Lion & Steed” novel were checked, re-checked, buffed and
shined today! A whole twenty-two words over my self-imposed minimum. I’ll take
it.
Now, I will turn you over to the Chloe Review, an escape for us all
from the big ticker in the sky.
The Particulars: “Dracula 3D”
or “Argento’s Dracula” is an Italian horror movie released in 2012. Filmed in
Piedmont, Italy, the film was written and directed by Dario Argento. The budget
was 5.6 million euros.
The Chloe Blurb: A take on
Bram Stoker’s novel finds Harker arriving at Dracula’s for a job as his
librarian. Wives begin jumping out of the woodwork and fangs are passed around
like ghoulish favors. Mina and Lucy are soon roped into the game, as is dear
old Van Helsing. It’s a frightful time in ol’ Transylvania that night.
The Players: No major
problems here, although the man playing the priest was not up to snuff with the
rest of the crew. Lucy, played by Asia Argento, I really liked, although I don’t have the foggiest idea as to why. Screen
presence, perhaps? Or maybe the look of the actress simply fit the part as I’ve
always imagined it. It probably didn’t hurt her screen time to have her father
as the director. Rutger Hauer as Van Helsing bothered me. Not because of the
job he did, but because I think the role just didn’t suit the actor. I don’t
know. It was weird.
On the Plot: The major plot points
were taken straight from Bram Stoker’s novel. If you know the basic Dracula
story, you know this film. Nothing new here. I will leave any complaints I have
with it to the “Plot Holes” section below.
Plot Holes, Miscues and the
Like: Spoilers abound here. Beware.
-The priest’s role in
the film was forced. It was like Argento thought he had to have the priest in
there to be loyal to the story. Erasing the Father from the script, in my
opinion, would have been a better move.
-Mina seemed terribly
unaffected by things that should have destroyed such an innocent soul as we are
all to believe she is. Examples of this bland reaction include, in no
particular order: Lucy’s graphic burning, the giant bug eating Lucy’s father,
hearing of her dear Jonathan’s death. The fact that she was seduced by a
vampire didn’t seem to bother her too much either.
-Why didn’t Dracula
just kill Harker outright? Dracula wasn’t using him and he didn’t even have the
poor guy out of his coffin running around causing mayhem and murder like he had
poor Tonya doing.
-In the final fight, why
didn’t Dracula just knock off Van Helsing’s head like he did the guy that was
going to betray him at the town meeting? One knock is all it took.
-Very Hammer-like in
the colors, sets and the way the story was told but when viewing it without its
3D-ness, the backgrounds suffered terribly.
And so this ends tonight’s Chloe Review. Hope you enjoyed!
Until tomorrow…
Chloe
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