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Dracula Rising
I must be groggy from lack of sleep or something.
1993
Review: October 27, 2006
Director: Fred Gallo
Starring: Christopher Atkins, Stacey Travis, Doug Wert
No, just don’t watch the film.
THE SETUP:
Dracula’s son, reincarnated love of long ago, you know the deal.
DISCUSSION:
Ugh. Since I had watched Blue Lagoon not long ago, I once again became interested in the lesser-known works of Christopher Atkins, and this one looked amusing. Of course, hearing that there is a scene that takes place IN HELL with Atkins hurling flaming fireballs also urged me to move this to the top of my list. It was all a huge mistake.
My hopes deflated the moment I saw “Roger Corman Presents” on screen, as I seem to be immune to enjoyment of his oeuvre, finding them just senseless and not amusing [although somehow worthwhile things like The Last Woman on Earth do manage to occasionally slip through]. So we open with these credits while we hear this 50s-ish theme song, “Be My Angel Tonight,” quite possibly sung by Christopher Atkins, although I didn’t bother to check in the credits [and it’s not listed on IMDb]. It sets a certain tone—and the rest of the movie is in a different tone. So anyway, Stacey Travis of Hardware and the last two episodes of Angel, this artist and art restoration expert, is the guest of honor at this art opening / disco. She introduces her latest painting, which looks like the kind of thing that might grace the cover of a novel by Ursula Le Guin, and asks for money. Then the art gallery abruptly becomes a disco, and Christopher Atkins comes walking lugubriously into the room, making an idiotic face with wide eyes [and special eye-highlight lighting] that is supposed to appear somewhat Dracula-esque. Isn’t it incredible how the template set by the Bela Legosi performance is STILL being imitated? Atkins is 32 here, and he looks every year his age. He has dumb early-90s hair, and just overall looks like Luke Skywalker, but 10 years older. Which is what it is, but… did you ever imagine Dracula looking like Luke Skywalker? But 10 years older?
So there is many a flashback in which we learn that Stacey was Dracula’s love back in the day [the day being circa 1500], and that her current incarnation is the reincarnation of that woman. WHY is this always the plotline of like EVERY Dracula movie ever? It’s even the plot of Blacula. Anyway, so they dance while we have flashbacks to their blissful love in wherever, where apparently they had highly-developed hair product made from the natural ingredients commonly found in the rich Transylvanian earth. The next day Theresa is in the outrageously cool art restoration studio with a bunch of her own crappy paintings and her passive-aggressive, bitchy, jealous friend who thankfully disappears real soon. So Theresa gets an invitation to go restore a painting in “Eastern Europe” [can you buy an airline ticket to such an obscure location? What is the airport code, EEP?]. Then she has a vision and recovers, saying “I must be groggy from lack of sleep or something.” Then suddenly a ton of flames burst out in front of her! Then something else happens, I forget, but she accepts the job.
So we arrive in “Eastern Europe,” and Theresa gets a white cab that will only take her so far toward the monastery or whatever where the job is. I love how the cabbie uses the excuse that the car has died, then promptly gets in the car, starts it up, and speeds away. Theresa meets Alec, the somewhat attractive guy who hired her [I had to find some interest in make it through this] and she’s shown the painting, which is about as bad as hers are, but a lot dirtier. I say take some Windex to that shit and get out of there. I thought this whole thing was going to go in a House of Laughing Windows direction, and started plotting my “art restoration thrillers” home film fest, but it kind of drops this whole thread pretty quickly.
Around this point I realized that this movie was stupid as fuck and a total waste of time so I turned it off and gave myself a little tug before bedtime, far more rewarding than the one I was getting from this movie.
The next day I set about fast-forwarding through the rest. We have more flashbacks to plague times, when the monasteries were apparently quite clean and looked like Pottery Barn outlets, and all the inhabitants of “Eastern Europe” spoke with California accents. Mr. Atkins continues to induce headaches with his wide-open Dracula stares and gently feathered hair, and if your darkest fantasies have ever involved Rick Springfield as Dracula, but blond, HERE is your movie.
Anyway, there is some homoerotic shit between Alec and Dracula [though he’s not actually Dracula, we’ll get to that], because Alec has always been jealous that Dracula liked Theresa and didn’t pay enough attention to him, and it continues in the present day, because it was Alec that brought Theresa to “Eastern Europe” in hopes that Dracula might chomp on her. We have MORE flashbacks to back in the day, when Alec [who’s now a vampire, I hope you figured that out] had Theresa burned at the stake for being a witch. He leads a pack of locals, and when he says “She’s a witch!” they chant “Witch! Witch! Witch! Witch! Witch! Witch! Witch!” Then she says “She must burn!” and they say “Burn! Burn! Burn! Burn! Burn! Burn! Burn!” until you’re like: “Asswipes! I FUCKING HEARD HIM!” You’ll also notice that many castles in the background spontaneously issue ‘atmospheric’ smoke.
Anyway, turns out that Chris isn’t even Dracula, he’s Dracula’s son… and not even Dracula’s, but boring old Vlad the Impaler. Snoooooooze. That’s old Dad in the painting, and he is presented as a sort of Hannibal Lecter of the plague years, except that his mask that covers his mouth is more ornate. Turns out Dad made son into a vampire, and Chris bit Alec and killed him, but Dad turned him into a vampire, too. So you can see where these deep-seated homo issues come from. Typical thing: distant, unemotional, mass-murderer father. There’s probably an overbearing mother in there somewhere too. Anyway, you can tell that Alec was jealous that Chris had this big strong daddy and he didn’t, then one day daddy let his son’s best friend suck his arm, and now his son is jealous and the friend is out of control. I swear I saw this movie when it starred Chad Douglas. So anyway, someone’s been watching his HIS Video, although what we’re left with supplies less than one-tenth of the subtext, clever writing and distinct directorial voice of those influential films.
Seriously though, the homo subtext is so stupid and lame that it is not worth watching. I would hate to think that I lured any unsuspecting homos to their cinematic doom through my careless writing.
So our scene soon shifts to hell. Yes, THAT hell. Hell, it turns out, resembles a concert at Red Rocks. Chris and Alec hurl various fireballs at each other, rendered in special effects that redefine the cutting edge, then Chris makes a big ball of something that turns into a bunch of bats, and the bats go over and eat Alec’s face off. Then Chris lays out in the sun and gets a really bad sunburn, because he knows he can never be with Theresa, and that’s the end. I don’t think we even find out what happened to Theresa, but I was fast-forwarding so quickly through it all I’m not even sure.
This DVD is good. It is good to make a coaster out of, or a mobile, or, if you had a bunch of them, to make a fish mural with each DVD looking like one of the scales. Other than that, I wouldn’t put it to any use. This is exactly what I don’t like about most Roger Corman movies; they’re just FUCKING DUMB and pointless, invented because it’s time to make a movie, and padded out with whatever is on hand until it reaches 90 minutes [or in this case, 85]. Many other bad movies started out trying to be at least somewhat decent but went astray, which gives them a modicum of interest, but if they’re just crap developed in the hopes that someone at some Blockbuster somewhere will mistake it for some better known movie… Okay whatever, I’m not even going to continue wasting my typing on this piece of shit.
SHOULD YOU WATCH IT?
I can’t think of any possible reason anyone would want to watch this.
