In his encore to playing "60 Minutes" interrogator Mike Wallace in "The Insider," Christopher Plummer is again going after big game in "Dracula 2000," the latest attempt at dragging Bram Stoker's well-traveled vampire into modern times - a frequent destination for the...
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A surprisingly good Dracula movie
Most vampire movies are downright awful, but "Dracula 2000" is better than most, achieving some suspense and a lot of creepiness with some deft direction by veteran horror film editor Patrick Lussier, backed by a lot of flashy special effects and competent acting....
‘DRACULA 2001’ A BLOODSUCKING GOOD TIME AT THE MOVIES
JAKARTA (Japan): It seems that vampire movies never die, just like the fanged immortals themselves. However, filmmakers have their work cut out for them in the effort to make something interesting from the seemingly ready-to-use formula so familiar to audiences....
FANGS AIN’T WHAT THEY USED TO BE
DRACULA 2001 15 Release: Next Friday. Running time: 99 mins. Quick plot: Drac's back when some misguided thieves steal the count's coffin in London and fly him to New Orleans. Van Helsing, now an antique dealer, soon has a stake in the proceedings. ROSS: WHAT we have...
Those Wacky, Drooling, Foaming, Biting Undead
Horror films with delusions of historical grandeur have to strain awfully hard these days to come up with fresh explanations for the origins of evil. Hasn't it all been done at least 10 times over? Well, as it turns out, no. The doozy of an explanation offered by...
ANCIENT STORY COMES ALIVE IN ADEQUATE ‘DRACULA’ UPDATE
Dark prince prowls New Orleans So who is this Dracula, really? Depends on who's asking. According to Dracula 2000 screenwriter Joel Soisson, he's not a myth, a legend or the ravings of an Irish novelist. He's got a real history, this poor undead seducer of women,...
‘Dracula 2000’ is a serviceable rip-off
Watching "Dracula 2000," the new vampire movie "presented" by horror maestro Wes Craven (but actually directed by Patrick Lussier, Craven's former film editor), I was reminded how the vampire thriller is a unique mini-genre, as different from other horror pictures as...
Harrison’s Flowers
A 7 Films Cinema/StudioCanal/France 2 Cinema production. (International sales: Studio Canal, Paris.) Produced by Elie Chouraqui, Albert Cohen. Directed by Elie Chouraqui. Screenplay, Chouraqui, Didier Le Pecheur, Isabel Ellsen, Michael Katims. Camera (color,...
Focus plants ‘Flowers’
Universal Pictures' specialty division Universal Focus has picked up U.S. distribution rights to "Harrison's Flowers," which stars Andie MacDowell and David Strathairn. The first English-language pic from French helmer Elie Chouraqui, pic was released in France on...
A Life in the Day of Phil Hunt, Producer of “Fast Food”
Haven't quite worked out why we do it. Is it the glamour? (Not for producers surely.) Is it the sense of accomplishment as you stand in a screening of your completed film? (Or should I say sit in your wheelchair as all your limbs have finally given up on you.) Or...
Fast Food
I sat down to Fast Food with high hopes. It promised inspiration from new Asian cinema, and boasted Douglas Henshall as the lead - always a very attractive, watchable performer even when, as here, he is let down by the script. Fast Food quickly degenerates into just...
London Calling…
Well, you must hand it to British writer-director Stewart Sugg for squeezing this much style and energy out of such a low-budget production. Fast Food is one of those hip London thrillers that blends strong violence and black comedy (ie, heavy doses of A Clockwork...