DRACULA: LEGACY (2005)

 

ASCENSION is merely middling entertainment, clearly patterned after hundreds of horror-films in which foolish mortals trifle with forces beyond their control. That said, though most of the characters are flat stereotypes, ASCENSION at least allows for a few Faustian themes. LEGACY, however, is just a lot of thud and blunder, as Uffizi teams up with Luke and they both run around various beautiful Romanian locations hunting vampires. This time, because Uffizi has been infected by Dracula's vampirism, the church doesn't sanction his mission, and he goes vamp-hunting on his own recognizance, though he continues to wear the priestly collar.

During the duo's quest, a European reporter named Julia joins them, with the result that she and Uffizi form a romantic attachment. There's a little character-conflict in that Uffizi doesn't want to fall in love, despite no longer being restrained by a priest's injunctions, and this mirrors Luke's desire for Elizabeth, and to liberate her from the evil Count. Eventually Dracula is defeated. Only at the very end do the scripters dip into the Christian myth-bag once more, for though Uffizi slays Dracula, he doesn't manage to overcome his own curse, and at the end he's seen with a vampiric Julia sitting in his lap-- a clear quotation of Michelangelo's "Pieta," which shows the slain Christ lounging in the lap of his mother Mary.

On a final note, it's interesting that the scripters found a "Doctor Who"-like method of accounting for changing the actor playing Dracula in each film, stating that whenever the vamp regenerates, he automatically changes his face. This doesn't really make any sense, but does make it easier to watch the transitions between Gerard Butler, Stephen Billington and Rutger Hauer.