Review: Dracula III: Legacy

We continue on from “Dracula II: Ascension” with priest and vampire hunter Uffizi (Jason Scott Lee) now joined by sidekick Luke (Jason London) roaming Romania lopping off vampire heads, and eventually aiming to find the lair of Dracula (Rutger Hauer) in order to save Elizabeth (Diane Neal) from eternal damnation. Meanwhile, Uffizi bonds with a war correspondent (Alexandra Westcourt) covering a Romanian civil war. Uffizi rescues her when her crew are beset by vampires. Uffizi, for his part, also has an internal conflict to deal with as he fights off a transformation into everything he hates, and sees defeating Dracula as the key to saving his own soul. Roy Scheider has a cameo as Uffizi’s superior, Cardinal Siqueros, who thinks Uffizi’s time would be better spent in less kill-happy priestly services.

Directed by the underrated but uneven Patrick Lussier (“My Bloody Valentine”, “Drive Angry”, “Dracula 2000”, “Dracula II: Ascension”) from a screenplay by Joel Soisson (“Prophecy 3: The Ascent”, “Dracula II: Ascension”) and Lussier, this 2005 film from Dimension/Miramax is pretty much the same deal as “Dracula II: Ascension”, except with Rutger Hauer playing Dracula. That’s enough of a distinction to make parts of the film enjoyable, and it might be slightly better overall than “Ascension”. Sadly, Hauer only turns up towards the end, otherwise this film could’ve had a real chance of being lots of fun instead of ‘meh’. If I had cast Rutger Freakin’ Hauer as Dracula in a film, I’d have him right front and bloody centre for a large chunk of the film. Even before he appears on screen, Hauer’s voice is chilling and his presence is immediately felt. This guy was one of the great talents gone to direct-to-DVD waste. He’s actually creepy as hell as Dracula, making one wonder all the more why he sucked so hard in “Buffy: The Vampire Slayer”. With lines like ‘Seduction?...I don’t think so’ (it doesn’t read as well as it sounds), you know Hauer has evil intentions in mind, even if you’re not sure of the specifics. He’s such an effortlessly evil presence in film, even crappy ones. Like Christopher Lee, Hauer plays every role like it’s freakin’ Shakespeare.

The Bucharest locales once again are appropriate, but as with the previous films, the characters aren’t terrible interesting. In the first film you had thieves, “Ascension” had med students, and here there’s a journalist/UN bent, and although more interesting than the med students in “Ascension”, that’s not saying much. The rest of the cast are pretty uneven (and how did Andrew Divoff and Christopher Lambert not end up in one of these films?), but Jason Scott Lee (who still sounds like Bruce Lee) and Jason London are infinitely better here than in the second film, probably because they both get more to do. Lee brings a touch of sadness and foreknowledge of his eventual fate that I appreciated, and London’s character in particular has progressed nicely. It’s odd then, that the film’s were made simultaneously (or more precisely, as one film intended to be split after completion), as evidenced by Roy Scheider appearing yet again (and getting a couple more lines of dialogue) in a scene clearly shot the same day as his scene in the previous film. So how can London be so dull in the second film and so much better here? Weird. Also shitting me to no end are brief flashes of footage from the previous film where Dracula was played by someone else. What the hell? It’s cheap and lazy at best and confusing at worst. Any film where Jason Scott Lee decapitates vampires is at least tolerable in my opinion, however.

I must also praise the work of cinematographer Doug Milsome (“The Shepherd”), who lights these films well and colourfully for something that probably came with a low-budget. He and Lussier are clearly more fans of Hammer than Francis Ford Coppola. Foggy graveyards may be a cliché but I like the cliché and this one looks terrific. Not so sure about the gypsy/Carny vampires, though. And can anyone tell me why David Zucker gets a ‘thank you’ credit in both this and the previous film?

Like the other two films, this isn’t good, but there are elements that aren’t bad. It gets a definite malevolent boost from Rutger Hauer, but leaves it far too late to bring him in.

Rating: C