the new Dario Argento film "DRACULA" in 3D?!

I liked it MUCH MORE than Phantom!!

 

Have to agree with The Chaostar excellent commentary. Dracula is depressing please Argento no more movies!

 

Well, he's not finished yet. MacBeth is next:
http://zombiehamster.com/entertainment/news/argento-set-to-direct-opera-based-on-macbeth/

 

Dracula was OK in my book. I didn't particularly like the look of it, but at least it had some of that old Italian Gothic to it.
Rutger Hauer was underused IMO.

 

That will an opera not a movie. Thank god!

 

I really hope that Lynch starts making movies again. He's at the top of my list as well. I liked Cronenberg's latest movie Cosmopolis even though it wasn't as good as Videodrome and Naked Lunch. I was even good with The Ward by Carpenter. Those movies might not be at the top of the heap in the oeuvre of their respective directors but at least they had decent acting. Cosmopolis was actually quite good. Argento, unfortunately, has just lost it completely. I loved his earlier works all the way up to and including The Stendhal Syndrome. Then the quality dropped and the movies became just ok (Phantom was horrible). Dracula was just terrible. It was badly acted, the CGI was nasty, and the whole movie was just unnecessary. I hope he turns it around but I lost all hope after this one.

 

I agree about the disappointment that was Argento's Dracula but I was dissappointed because of the fact that it wasn't entertaining in a bad movie kind of way. I pretty much gave up on ever seeing anything good again from Argento after Mother of Tears but Dracula sounded so bad that I thought it would be absolutely hilarious and I was really looking forward to seeing it for that reason alone. Sadly, it didn't even work in that way for me.

 

I agree it's sad to see the decline of D.A. Watching Dracula was like seeing an Ed Wood flick

 

I can't say I agree with this. Wood's films at least crackle with enthusiasm. That makes the ineptitude charming and funny. The lack of basic film-making skills and the laughable budgets are apparent in every frame. But you can feel the joy of the participants. Even an old pro like Bela Lugosi looks like he's there for more than a pay check.

F. ramses hit it on the head. The trailers made this film look like it would be a so-bad-it's-good-laugh-a-minute minor masterpiece along the lines of Plan 9. But Argento's Dracula isn't bad in an entertaining way. It's just stillborn. If it contained more ridiculous moments like the praying mantis scene or the town hall massacre scene it could have been fun. But it's such a perfunctory and phoned-in take on a story that's already been beaten to death. Not even a master scenery chewer like Rutger Hauer was able to bring it to life for long. I can't imagine any reason for its existence other than pure greed.

Simonetti and Argento have done sloppy work before. But I've never gotten such a half-assed vibe from any of their prior collaborations. These guys appear to have lost all interest in conjuring movie magic. Dracula 3d is pure product.

 

Great observations there.

 

Already streaming on NetFlix.

 

Down to $12.96 at Amazon. DVD $ 9.96.

 

Geez, this was pretty damned bad. :eek1: :eek1: It's almost hard to believe Argento actually made this one. I've seen just about every Dracula film adaptation there's ever been, and this would rank near the bottom...easily.

I thought the Cinematography was especially horrible throughout the film. Every scene that should have appeared darker simply looked artificially lit up. Most cheap DTV films have better cinematography than this film did!

And then there was the inept CGI which looked like it came from the early 2000's... certainly didn't help matters any.

Thomas Kretschmann and Rutger Hauer did pretty solid jobs with what they had to work with. They at least saved the film from being a total disgrace. Even Asia Argento was pretty bad in this one.

And I swear the music score for this one was a virtual total ripoff from some other film score...but I just can't quite pin it.

 

Those were the two moments that stood out for me as well. The effects were lousy in both of them, but there was a wackiness and energy that the rest of the film was hugely lacking. When that's present, I can forgive the worst of effects. It's what makes a terrible film like Birdemic worth watching, and what gives it some entertainment value. Aside from those two scenes (and maybe the completely gratuitous Lucy-takes-a-sponge-bath scene), this movie was incredibly dull.

It felt like the actors were participating in a staging or lighting exercise, reading their lines in a monotone while the crew did their thing. Rutger Hauer in particular looked and sounded like he was under sedation. Each line delivery felt like it was a confused question, as though he were completely unsure of where he was or what he was doing there.

Re-reading this thread is more entertaining than the movie. The hope and cautious optimism of the early posts seems tragic in retrospect.

 

I agree with this. But, I wonder if Argento was trying to compensate for the lost light resulting with the 3D glasses. Granted, that implies that at least some thought went on while this was being made and I really don't see much evidence of that anywhere else.

It also seems like the actors didn't know that camera was running. At times, it seems like everyone thought this was a dress rehearsal.

 

I guess that is a possibility, but if that's indeed the case it turned out horribly in 2D. I just thought the entire film looked horribly inept and amateurish.

 

Arriving this week from Netflix, so I can check out the suckitude for myself.

 

I can't bring myself to watch this. After Hitchcock, Mother of Tears and Giallo I told myself I would never watch a shitty Argento movie again.

 

I haven't seen any of them after readin' these blogs and posts. I did, however, really really like "JENIFER" which I thought was well made, really twisted and the violence actually disturbed me.

 

I forgot about that one. Really dug it as well.