Dracula - The Dark Prince

Dracula - The Dark Prince

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DVD Reviews of Dracula - The Dark Prince

DVD Review: Neither Stoker's Dracula or the historical Vlad the Impaler
Summary: 3 Stars

Yes, this is a movie just begging to be made. Unfortunately, "Dark Prince: The True Story of Dracula" is not that film. The main problem is that the script by Thomas Baum decides to turn Vlad Tepes (1431?-1476?), son of Vlad Dracul (1390?-1447) into a teenage heartthrob played by Rudolph Martin (1967- ). Historically Vlad the Impaler is remembered as a bloodthirsty tyrant with a reputation for creative cruelty Dante would have admired: in his brief six-year reign he is believed to have conservatively executed 40,000 victims. His reputation was such that basically once they stopped printing up the first Bibles on the new printing presses they started printing up pamphlets about Vlad's deeps, with woodblock illustrations of his enjoying a feat while his victims suffered on their poles. However, this 2000 film does not want to take that route and for some reason I suspect this is because "Dark Prince" was a made for television film instead of a theatrical release, where Vlad's actions could be more graphically displayed.

The framing device for the story is that in 1476, shortly before his death, Vlad is brought before the inquisition of the Eastern Orthodox church and made to account for his actions. Within this context he tells his life story, beginning when he and his brother Radu were held prisoners by the Turks as teenagers. Upon his release Vlad claimed the throne of Wallachia (a.k.a. Romania) and slaughtering the nobles who betrayed his father. Politically Vlad's kindgom is caught between the hated Turks and the untrustworthy King Janos of Hungary (Roger Daltrey). Consequently, in the final analysis, "Dark Prince" wants to recast Vlad the Impaler as a 15th century freedom fighter.

Consequently, "Dark Prince" wants to deal with Vlad as more of a morally ambiguous figure, a creature of his times who took actions out of political necessity and who was pretty good looking with his dark hair (which certainly runs counter to the man we see in the paintings believed to be Vlad). However, what makes Vlad interesting from a historical perspective is that you can make the case that Vlad the Impaler is to Eastern Europe what El Cid was to the West in terms of being primarily responsible for stopping the Muslims armies from overrunning Christian Europe. When a Turkish army approached his capital he initiated a scorched earth policy and impaled the Turkish advance guard around the walls of his city. When he saw this the Sultan and his invading army retreated. But this is a low-budget film so that scene was never going to be shot.

At the end of "Dark Prince" we find out this film was only inspired by the history of Vlad the Impaler, which means it ends up being about as fictional as Stoker's "Dracula," which brings up all sorts of attendant ironies to play with. In the end, those who know about the historical Vlad will be distracted by all the liberties and distortions in the film while the neophytes would have yet another dose of "history" courtesy of a made-for-television movie. There was a rather interesting gimmick with this film in that Martin played the vampire version of Dracula in the season premier of the fifth season of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and made a much better impression on the television show than he did in this made for television film.