Random Lamest Movie and TV Draculas (10 items)

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  (#1) John Carradine As Count Dracula In Billy The Kid Vs Dracula

  Dracula has transported himself to the Wild West. Because why the heck not? Here, he rolls through town dressed like that one magician in the magic circle that's just taking it too far. He has a mustache perfect for twirling after tying a woman to some train tracks. This Dracula is a lot more Silent Movie villain-esque in his presentation and demeanor than blood-sucking, lusty vampire.

  Here, he faces off against Billy the Kid, who is able to take down this Vaudeville vampire by throwing a gun at this head. Yeah. That's how Dracula meets his untimely end. Pretty lame, huh?
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  (#2) Buffy the Vampire Slayer

  • TV Program

  Everyone's familiar with the Anne Rice-associated vampires, right? The long-haired, pale, fancy-looking fellows audiences all know (and maybe love?) from Interview with a Vampire. Well Buffy's Dracula takes a leaf right out of that play book and runs away with it. Maybe, knowing Buffy's tongue-in-cheek tone, this is actually a parody of that vampire archetype

  That doesn’t stop this Dracula from being any less lame. His lips are perpetually pursed. His wig is so long it borders on Amanda Bynes's "hair cape" territory. Is he wearing eye shadow? Perhaps. This Dracula is imminently ridiculous and subsequently lame.
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  (#3) Dracula

  • TV Program

  This short-lived NBC period-drama was actually pretty entertaining. Most of the time it was a nutso show about light bulbs and the power of electricity, peppered with some lesbian activity. The only thing consistently letting the show down was Dracula himself. God, Dracula was a real drag.

  Rhys-Meyer's Dracula was in a near-constant state of broody mope-dom. Not to mention he had assumed a secret identity of brilliant scientist/light bulb-enthusiast, Alexander Grayson. So the audience was mostly robbed of seeing Dracula be, well, Dracula. And that's a shame. Because this show could have been a fantastic vehicle for some fang-banging, blood-sucking action on primetime.
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  (#4) Blade

  • Film

  Oh just look at that plunging neckline. This is Dracula if Dracula was a bro. And this is no more apparent than when this Dracula re-christens himself 'Drake,' predating the actual Drake (rapper and Degassi-alumni Aubrey Graham) and his earliest mixtape.

  This Dracula is like a beefy gym bro who has ripped the neckline of his tank top to cavernously deep levels so as to expose his pecs. What's lacking here is sex appeal, charisma, and any hint of intelligence - all things that should be front and center in any good Dracula depiction. All that's left is meaty muscles and bulging neck veins.
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  (#5) Dracula 2000

  • Film

  This depiction of Dracula - Drac-piction? Depicula? - does try to do something different with the character. They switch out Dracula's long-understood-to-be-canon original identity of Vlad the Impaler for the equally recognizable Judas Iscariot. Yeah, that's right - Judas. Bible Judas. That could have been a cool concept, and it does lend itself to an explanation of why all vampires are not down with religious iconography. Unfortunately, the rest of the movie oscillates between being boring and straight-up crazy.

  Gerard Butler doesn't so much play Dracula as just have great pectoral muscles that are constantly on show. He's less of a Dracula and more of a sex object. Really, you could take any mention of the name Dracula out of this movie, and he'd be an interchangeable sexy-vampire-stock character. However, this movie does take 'sexy vampire' to hilariously ludicrous levels. No less because this Dracula can screw his sexual partners into the sky. He and whomever he's penetrating can float across the screen like they're James Bond and Dr. Holly Goodhead in Moonraker, though, in the latter's case, they drift across the screen via a lack of gravity. In Gerard Butler's case, it's presumably some kind of sexy vampire magic.
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  (#6) Van Helsing

  • Film

  Maybe it's because Richard Roxburgh is forever burnt into viewers' minds as the Duke from Moulin Rouge, but it's difficult to really see his sex appeal. The Duke was this sexually repugnant, sniveling, attempted rapist. This Dracula seems like the natural extension of that character. And that wouldn't be so much of a problem if this film wasn't playing up how smokeshow sexy this Dracula is supposed to be.

  Though another argument could be made for Roxburgh's performance being a master class in camp. He's a camp vamp. A campire. He flings himself around the screen, pitching fits and coming across as more foppish than menacing. Also that ponytail… just… why?

  And those vampire teeth! What's going on there? The intention was probably to create some new, scary vampire incarnation that would become as classic as the wrinkled forehead, yellow-eyed vampires of Buffy, but instead, the audience is left with a Beetlejuice­-esque, claymation-cartoon-looking jaw that might leave the audience hoping that if they say 'Dracula' three times, they can send this Dracula back to hell.
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  (#7) Blood for Dracula

  • Film

  Talk about your lame Draculas… Kier's performance of a drained, blood-starved Dracula is just depressing. There's no charisma, cunning, or sex appeal to revel in. Instead, the audience is being bummed out for the duration of the movie.

  In this Andy Warhol-produced vampire flick, Kier's Dracula is in dire need of blood. He's practically on his death bed. Or, well, what do you call a deathbed for someone who’s already dead? Regardless, this Dracula needs some virgin blood, and, in a particularly creepy detail, it absolutely has to be virgin blood; otherwise, he'll perish. What that leaves a viewer with is an increasingly desperate and debased Dracula that sucks the joy out of the vampire genre rather than the blood he so desires.
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  (#8) Scooby-Doo! and the Reluctant Werewolf

  • Film

  Maybe it's unfair to call this Dracula lame. But when Dracula comes to mind, nay, when all vampires are taken into consideration, it's almost impossible to divorce them of their ties to sexuality. Vampires have a storied history of being written as sexual metaphors. The whole act of blood sucking is almost always depicted as a sensual experience. If not sensual, then it's downright violent. So when it comes to a kids' cartoon Dracula, it's always going to come up short.

  This Dracula runs a Monster Rally Race but is in dire need of a werewolf to compete. He turns Shaggy into a werewolf and demands he race for him, offering him the deal that if he wins, he'll make him a human once again. Sure. As far as Dracula's go… this one is pretty lame.
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  (#9) Dracula Untold

  • Film

  Yet another spin on the Dracula origin story, Luke Evans's Dracula is a mopey vamp with a martyr complex, sucking all the fun out of the Dracula mythos while donning suspiciously Asian-inspired looking Armour, pulling an Iron Fist with the cults-approps (cultural appropriation if you don't like abbreviation).

  The more recent depictions of Dracula seem intent on rewriting history and making him into a tortured, tragic hero, battling his inner demons. That’s not what Dracula's all about. People want the bloodlust. The creepy sexual overtures. People want the cape and the accent and the charisma. If viewers want to see dark, antiheroes they can pop on a Warner Brothers/DC superhero movie. Make Dracula fun again!
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  (#10) Hotel Transylvania

  • Film

  Adam Sandler was, hopefully, going for a Transylvanian accent here, but he fell way short, landing in the region of Andy Kauffman's 'foreign' accent mixed with a little of the Count from Sesame Street. This Dracula is so sanitized he's unrecognizable. He might as well be a nameless pale guy in a cape.

  It's probably unfair to go in on a Dracula as depicted in a children's movie, but this diluted-to-the-point-of lameness iteration of Dracula earns his place on a list of the worst. This Dracula is a doting father who doesn't seem to have an evil bone in his body. Next!  

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