thoraj
Tsk tsk Billy Zane! I am horrified by this flick and some of the comments it has gotten. Original storyline in some aspects but the filmmakers could have done much better if they had put any thought at all into it. I just can't believe that anyone would like this... the only positive things I can say is that the locations were nice. The actors were horrible and completely unbelievable. I love Brad Dourif and I know that he sometimes makes odd choices as to his work so I can't fault him or his performance but there is just not enough of him. But Billy Zane : what were you thinking? The role is not good and you didn't even give a decent performance! Don't see this film... rent anything else in fact. Anything, really, trust me on this. I am a huge fans of all vampire flicks and this one has the honor of being the worst one I have ever seen.
José Luis Rivera Mendoza (jluis1984)
First of all, "Vlad" is a different kind vampire movie. It has almost nothing in common with the typical vampire movie and moves further in the Gothic fantasy genre, horror-fantasy would be a better term. Far away from typical clichés of the genre, this movie presents us a twist in the well known history of Count Dracula as it removes any link to Bram Stoker's novel and focuses on the myths that inspired Stoker's novel. This movie is a tale of Romanian vampires.The plot is a bit confusing, but at its core, it is about four graduated students who are selected by a Rumanian organization that will fund their research for their final thesis as their projects deal with Rumanian folklore and/or Vlad Tepes, the legendary ruler of Valachia who inspired Stoker to write the famous novel. The organization, lead by Radescu (Brad Douriff), is in fact a facade for an ancient order created by Tepes centuries ago, and their purposes will reveal when one of the students, Linsey (Monica Davidescu), reveals her secret: Her family had stolen a medallion from Vlad's grave.The secret powers of the medallion will create chaos as the members of the order try to find it, for different purposes everyone, and the students are in the middle of the struggle aided by Adrian (Billy Zane), a loyal agent of Radescu who tries to avoid the rebirth of Vlad.Now, the plot is for once very clever and quite interesting. The writers really did a great research when they wrote the story as it includes pieces of real history, Romanian folklore and Vlad Tepes' biography. Of course, spiced with fantasy and horror elements. Nevertheless, this is also its big problem, the movie tries to accomplish many tasks and this creates a confusing script. Certainly, a bigger budget would have resulted in a longer movie, and a longer movie would have fixed the confusion.Depsite that huge problem, the movie works at its level, with an incredibly looking visuals, thanks to the beautiful Romanian locations and the amazing camera-work. It's indeed surprising how much they could make with so small budget.Sadly, the budget hurts the SFX and they look as if they came from a cheap TV series. This indeed decreases a work of good quality, but fortunately, they focus on acting and not in SFX, so it is not that notorious.The acting is very good, and the young actors show promise. While some of the characters were not very developed, the actors did a good job with the little they had and the result is pretty good. Again, a bit more of care in the script would have resulted in outstanding performances, but yet, the actors carry the film with grace.Last but not least, the most remarkable feature of this movie is without a doubt the music. It is an outstanding work and it is a shame that the movie had not been more known, because the music is really outstanding. Few times a b-movie has a score this good and the movie really makes the most of it.While probably this movie is not Oscar material, it is certainly among the best vampire movies of this decade. Or at least, among the most original. A great fantasy movie. 6.5/10
trei-mlcs
When I saw the teaser for VLAD I was not expecting much, but I was actually impressed. VLAD has a very interesting premise once you get passed the initial campy start of college kids chasing the vampire legend. I agree that some of the editing might not be the best at times, but that's to be expected on a low budget.The casting was good and did a good job delivering the dialog in a believable way.I would recommend this to anyone that wants a break from the action/adventure visions of vampires or anyone that just enjoys a little more substance than a goth/s&m vampire flick.
TEMPKENNEDY
I just laugh when you have people who want to see the same old vampire movie.Familiarity seems to be the reason, for if its good .The avoidance of something new or different for example:Put a bunch of people in a room and show them the movie vlad then show them hellboy.When you play vlad people will start to exit the room because there expectation is that of what they have seen in the past.Then play hellboy and you will have very little exiting the room because it fills the expectations of the past.Vlad,the movie explains the legend of Dracula and how it was started.But see, that is real information, versus a dark figure who bites the neck of everyone in its path,which one do you think will win out?Vlad is good movie and deserved more attention that it received.
