I didn't plan on doing this review anyways since I got other sh*t planned to do, but right after I got done watching this trainwreck I decided I should do an quick review to get it out of my system before I forget doing it. You may remember Dracula 3000? Well, probably not you lucky f*ck but let me refresh your memory: it was an retelling of the Dracula mythos in outer space, that managed to be the worst in every possible way imaginable - boring, uninteresing shlock that torpedoed any possible way of being entertaining even in the most ironic way. Now you may be wondering why is this completely unrelated sh*tty movie that I would sooner forget relevant to this' review subject? Because as I was writing the original paragraph I realized Dracula the Dark Prince is B-movie shlock that does its own spin on the Count mythos and a hell of more entertaining than 3000 ever dreamed. Still not a good movie, but you can have some ironic fun with it.

The story goes out like this in the typical fashion: Drac is a prince that goes out to war against the Ottomans invading Romania, his wife gets killed, he gets pissed, renounces his humanity and turns into an vampire. Fastforward a hundred years into the 16th century, the land is plunged into complete darkness as Dracula rules with iron fist through his supernatural army of demons. When a crusader warband carrying an important artifact is slaughtered by Drac's enforcer who looks like a cheap cross between Darth Vader and a Nazgul, only two survivors - the warrior sisters Esme and Alina - managed to escape only to end up running into Lucien, an handsome rogue who takes their treasure and both of them prisioners. Its revealed that the girls are protegees to Leonardo Van Helsing, an seasoned vampire hunter determined to rid the land of Dracula's influence and the artifact they carry is the Lightbringer, an weapon capable of permanently destroying Dracula. Alina is captured by the Dracula's minions and brought in the presence of their master, who is smitten by her resemblance to his long deceased wife Elizabeth. Meanwhile, Van Helsing, Esme and Lucien join forces to rescue Alina, specially after its revealed Lucien has a supernatural secret of his own. But the question is, does Alina really want to be rescued herself after she starts falling for the man behind the monster?

Dark Prince is strange to describe, its a cross between a prequel/alternate retelling of Bram Stoker's novel and mixing them up with heroic/dark fantasy. Some characters from the original canon are present, or at least, its spiriual counterparts like Van Helsing and Reinfield but they play an completely embelished part from their original story. Overall its what you would get if you remade Francis Ford Copolla's 1993 movie and combined it with Xena the Warrior Princess or Conan the Barbarian to get you an idea. Imagine if instead of Mina Harker, you had Red Sonja whose previous incarnation was Dracula's wife and ends up falling for the dark lord himself like in the novel, instead of Jonathan Harker you had an dashing rogue that flirts with the heroine a lot you get the idea I suppose. Besides the aforementioned Witch-King of Angmar being Drac's lead henchmen, the movie still throws some unexpected nonsense at you not presented in the source.

Its established that only the last descendent of Cain (yes the biblical one) can wield the Lightbringer and use it to destroy Dracula permanently, due to the latter being Abel's (!?!) descendent. Its completely thrown at you in the middle of the movie and its very well explained besides some parallels and comparisons drawn by Van Helsing that are probably circumstantial at best (Abel had a noble lineage which made Dracula an prince). And as it turns out, Lucien is the last descendent of Cain!! How convenient: in fact so convenient that is too close to comfort. How coincidetial that this bandit that lived in the land for so long, doesn't know sh*t about Dracula and vice-versa just so happens to be the chosen one that has the power to kill vampires forever and the heroes find out about it by sheer coincidence after his blood activates the Lightbringer's power? Its just too contrived.

The biggest problem is that the movie is loaded with plenty of ideas that sound good in theory but don't work in cohesive manner, either because of creators aren't good enough, lack of resources or just the restrictive format. The movie doesn't know whether its a romance story between Dracula and Alina or its an dark fantasy epic with some barbarian vampire hunters fighting against orcs and Ringwraith-like demons. Likewise, it doesn't have enough time for proper character development, to elaborate on the Curse of Cain from above, nor come up with satisfying motivation for the characters. Why does Van Helsing wants to destroy Dracula? His name is Van Helsing so he is probably obliged to do it. At least the big ass Scottish hunter explained he has been searching for the beings that kidnapped his sister and its reason for joining the group. And speaking of romance, it must be good then?

After all, have you ever seen in your life a B-movie doing romance right? If you can you'd probably not have that many examples to start with. First off, the actors aren't very compelling on the screen to make you buy their interaction and secondly, the movie tries to make Alina fall in love first with Lucien after just one night when he and his group took their sister prisioners and then after she is kidnapped by Dracula, she falls in love with him for some reason despite knowing full well of his atrocities. Its kind of erratic really a little worse than the Copolla's movie cause at least in there Mina was attracted to Dracula before she even found out he was an vampire. All in all, the script has a poor execution but I will give credit for trying to come up with some fresh spins and try to make the best they could, unlike 3000.

The acting goes as well as you might expect from a B-movie like this, almost everyone seems to have come out fresh from a cheap knock-off of the Glee tv show, with the only exception being Jon f*cking Voight is in this movie playing Van Helsing (therefore he fullfils his part as "legendary actor embarassing himself in this trainwreck"), and boy does he look embarassed to be here, speaking his lines - during - exposition - bits - in - punctuation - just - like - this. He knows what kind of movie he is in and is only in it for the paycheck. I'd imagine that when Brad and Angie's kids are being naughty this is the kind of movie they show to punish them (or maybe not, since there is some gratuitous nudity in it) Only the Dracula's actor seems to be the one that is trying way harder than most and having most fun as he branches back and forth between tortured angsty vampire ham and tortured angsty vampire in love.

The special effects and choreography are beyond laughable. Whenever Dark Prince has to resort to CGI, it looks like the graphics were pulled from the original Xbox console, its all more noticeable during scenary blue screens in the background or castle shots. Fight scenes reminded me of Uwe Boll's BloodRayne, another travesty that featured vampires with swords, but only with more competent-looking props instead of these pussy-looking butter knives from that movie. Whenever the Lightbringer is used is another thing entirely cause the actor has some serious problems wielding a massive staff/scythe specially against sword wielding enemies. I think the most hilarious moment was when Van Helsing decided to pick up a sword and charge against the Witch-King of Angmar in what appears to be one hell of a epic moment until you remember he is actually played by Jon Voight for this sh*t to pull any acrobatics, only for the scene to face into a fighting silluoute of the bad guy blocking his attacks until he disarms Van Helsing off-screen. How embarassing it must have been filming that...

Final Rating

5/10 - As far as B-movie goes, its passable and a f*ckton better than Dracula related shlock with a budget of 50 bucks. I feel like giving some extra points for creativity even if the execution was piss poor, but I got some ironic enjoyment out of it. If you love vampires and cheesy ass heroic adventures shows like the ones that aired in the 90s this might be the movie you want, but if you can't stand things that try out to be too many things and ends up having an identity crisis you'd probably like to skip this movie entirely.

Thank you guys for reading, see ya next time =p