Dark Prince: The True Story of Dracula (2000)

By CinemaSerf

I was drawn to this film by a trailer in which I could swear that I saw Roger Daltrey (from "The Who") and indeed, sparingly, here he is as "Janos", the King who decides to empower "Vlad Tepes" (Rudolf Martin) to fight against the Ottoman empire and to free his Romanian nation from their occupying yoke. This film makes no reference at all to any of the more traditional vampiric myth. It's basically just a low-budget history of a princely freedom-fighter who galvanises his people to resist their oppressive overlords. There are plenty of bloody battle scenes, a fair amount of impaling and generally the story processes well and quite excitingly with a decent degree of production values. The acting and the writing, however, are really poor with a stilted dialogue clunkily delivered by a lacklustre cast. I found there to be no chemistry at all between the lead and his Princess "Lidia" (Jane March). Insofar as there is any fact about this man, this effort does depict a story of a flawed and compromised man with a mission - and of one you crossed at your peril - well, and makes for a good adventure worthy of far better casting.