So. This movie was a lot of fun to watch. I wasn’t expecting a whole lot from this movie – I just had some spare time after work and figured I’d watch it.
I liked the fact that this movie didn’t take itself too seriously. Renfield worked really well as a narrator. The fact he had to eat bugs to trigger his abilities was extremely disgusting, but was a really interesting way of having the abilities of the main character triggered.
It was good that the character of Dracula didn’t really appear that much in the movie, as I felt that it allowed the focus to be more on the character of Renfield and the struggles he was facing. Plus, it was much harder to take Nicholas Cage as a seriously dangerous villain even when he was attacking people. Yes, this movie didn’t take itself seriously and was clearly meant to be dark comedy, but many of the other characters had depth to them despite the genre. Not so much the character of Dracula. However, I did really like the fact this movie made use of the general mythos of vampires: sunlight being deadly, unable to enter somewhere unless invited in, etc. (Which made little sense that Renfield then put a welcome mat in front of his apartment door, since surely he would have known it would issue an open invitation to Dracula?)
I really liked Rebecca as a character in this movie and I felt she was one of the strongest parts of this movie. I enjoyed her interactions with Renfield, especially with his awkward attempts to form a relationship with her…but I also really liked that it was saving her that triggered the change in Renfield and him trying to be a better person, a hero, and no longer Dracula’s thrall.
There were quite a few good comedy moments in this movie, some of which I found myself laughing out loud at. Along with the humour, of course, there was also a lot of gore and disgusting moments…it is a dark comedy, after all. Also, a lot of the secondary characters are really only there to be cannon fodder. The main characters are easy to care about and have a lot of depth to them, but for instance, the rest of the police officers don’t come across as individual characters at all, but more as a hive mind. However, I did feel bad for Carol, who kept getting interrupted every time she was trying to get support from the rest of the group.
All in all, this was a good movie to watch. It was entertaining and funny to watch. I don’t think I’d rush out to purchase the movie on DVD, but I wouldn’t mind watching it again in the future.
Ink of Blood 