Saturday, April 15, 2006

Dracula 3000: Infinite Darkness

Over the course of human history, there have been many great stories which we regard as classics. Also over the course of human history there have been countless numbers of people who thought that they could improve upon the original design of these classics. And most of those are utter failures. This is the story of one such failure.

“Dracula 3000” is a master work of rehashed crap. The logic behind it is simple enough: to remove Dracula from his only weakness, sunlight, put him where the sun can’t kill him.

In space.

Thus removed from his only weakness, Dracula is an unstoppable killing machine, who wipes out the entire planet of “Transylvania” and stows away on a cargo ship for Earth. So its aliens, but with vampires.

Set in the darkness of “deep space”, the crew happens upon an old cargo ship which suspiciously looks like an old kettle barbeque grill stuck on an assortment of discarded extra modeling parts. For some unfathomable reason, the crew decide that this grill-ship must be worth some money and decide to tow it back to Earth. Perhaps Earth has a surplus of beef patties and defrosted wieners that need to be cooked before the dreaded botulism sets in.

The film stars Casper Van Dien of “Starship Troopers” fame as the stereotypically unshaven male lead. Erika Eleniak from “Under Siege” and “Charles in Charge” stars as the tough as nails first mate/former sex-bot turned undercover robot detective. No, I’m not kidding.







Also, they got Coolio.



This all star cast spends the next 86 minutes trying to figure out how their careers went from their oh-so magnificent heights to this. Granted, it’s not much of a fall, but there is a difference from being on the edge of the toilet and being inside it. And baby, they are deep inside that metaphorical toilet.









Is this a step up or a step down from Charles in Charge?




While Dracula 3000 may be bad, its not painful. The 86 minutes spent watching this movie are usually filled with laughter, rather than groans. This bad movie qualifies as one of the movies so bad its good. Place your bets, folks, as to how they kill Dracula in the end. I’ll reveal this “shocking” spoiler at the end of the review.






Vampire Coolio wants your blood.





The only redeeming value of this sad, sad little movie, is the fun Coolio has playing a vampire. Oops, didn’t mean to spoil that little bit of the movie for you, but chances are that if you’re reading this, you’re not going to watch this movie. Coolio definitely shows that if you can’t act badly in a good movie, you can always act badly in a bad movie and look great by comparison. High off the “buzz” from being converted to one of the undead, Coolio jovially tortures the rest of the crew as he tries to drain them of their vital juices.

The rest of the crew is rounded out by “the big guy”, “the crippled guy” and “that other girl with the smaller bazongas”. Don’t bother trying to remember the names of these characters, they’re typecast roles say it all. Crippled guy is obviously smart and cowardly. Big guy is brave and dumb. And other girl with smaller bazongas is jealous and bitchy.








The anguish. Is it from being in deep space or this movie?



***SPOILER ALERT***

In the superbly climatic conclusion, this ship of fools formulates a fool proof plan to kill off their undead assailant. For all of you who said, “They fly the ship into the sun.” you are one-hundred percent correct.

In conclusion, if you have time to kill and a tolerance for pain, “Dracula 3000: Infinite Darkness” is not that bad. For the rest of you, I can only close with a quote from Peter Griffon: “There, I just saved you two long boobless hours." Seriously, no boobs.

1 comment:

esuarez said...

Dracula 3000 did do something for me that most movies don't. And that was to give me a headache not once but the 2 times i saw this. I think this flick sends pain waves that brain picks ups.

Casper shows that he has the power to look silly down after learning it well from starship troopers playing Rico - ultimate badass starship trooper guy. Coolio is well beyond criticism in my opinion.

So......

1,2,3,4...get your woman on the floor.

Go Coolio.