Dark Prince: The True Story of Dracula

Dark Prince: The True Story of Dracula
Directed by	Joe Chappelle
Written by	Thomas Baum
Produced by	Avram 'Butch' Kaplan
Starring	Rudolf Martin, Jane March, Christopher Brand Peter Weller, Michael Sutton, Roger Daltrey
Release date	2000
Running time	91 mins
Language	English

The True Story of Dracula (alternately titled Dracula: The Dark Prince and Dark Prince: Legend of Dracula) is a horror-war film made in 2000. It is about Vlad III Dracula, "the Impaler", the historical figure who gave Bram Stoker's Dracula his name.

Plot

Dark Prince: The True Story of Dracula tells the story of Vlad Dracula, the historical figure who gave Bram Stoker's Dracula his name. Vlad is a dispossessed noble, and a patriot who fights the occupation forces of the Turks. The King of Hungary (Roger Daltrey) becomes Vlad's ally and, with his support, Vlad and his men attack the occupying Turks and turncoat Romanian boyars, and seizes the throne of Wallachia.

His bride Lidia (Jane March) discovers what Vlad does to the bodies of his enemies and she is horrified. When Lidia has a child, Vlad takes control of the boy, and banishes her to a nunnery. Then, Vlad's brother Radu arrives at the head of a large Turkish invasion force.

The narrative of the film is presented as evidence given at a hearing following Vlad's alignment with the Roman Catholic King of Hungary. At the end of the film, Vlad is excommunicated by the Orthodox Church shortly before being assassinated by Radu. As a result of his condemnation by the priests, Vlad is found to have risen from the grave and gained eternal life as well as the ability to move around a room in an instant, implying that he has now become the very vampire for which his name is famous.

Cast

File:RudolfMartinDarkPrince.jpg

Cast of Dark Prince

Character	Actor
Vlad Dracula the Impaler	Rudolf Martin
Lidia	Jane March
Bruno	Christopher Brand
Father Stefan	Peter Weller
King Janos	Roger Daltrey
Radu	Michael Sutton

Reception

Critical reaction to Dark Prince: The True Story of Dracula has been mixed. John Walsh of Maxim said, "For such a familiar story, Dark Prince has all the excitement of something brand new. These characters can easily become caricatures, growling for gore and calling down vengeance from heaven. But the excellent cast and ferocious battle scenes make for one of the best war movies to hit TV in a while." Ryan Cracknell of the Apollo Movie Guide wrote, "Despite the weak acting, Dracula: The Dark Prince is a welcome extension of the Dracula brand. Unlike the multitudes of generic rip-offs that come out annually, this low-key effort finally puts a new spin on an old myth."

Mark Bourne of The DVD Journal said, "It plays hell with the facts and reduces its potentially gripping subject to cheesy soap operatic melodrama. ... It's not awful, but it is awfully ordinary. For the real goods, find McNally and Florescu's Dracula: Prince of Many Faces: His Life and Times instead." Christopher Null of Filmcritic.com said, "It's obviously fluffed up but at the same time it's a bit repetitious, with countless battle scenes that don't offer much closure. In the end we're left with the notion that Vlad the Impaler was (and remains) a national hero, not a demon walking among the dead. And that might put a crimp in your enjoyment of the Bram Stoker stories." Melissa J. Perenson of SciFi.com wrote, "Though flawed, Dark Prince nonetheless offers a rough-hewn look at the man who would be known simply as Dracula. But the lack of connection between the so-called reality and the modern-day myth left me wanting."

Historical inaccuracies

• Most all historical paintings of Vlad show him with facial hair, either a mustache or a full beard. In the film, he is never depicted as such, being mostly clean shaven the entire film, with occasional stubble.
• The historical figures of John Hunyadi and Matthias Corvinus are combined into one fictional king of Hungary called Janos.
• Vlad and Radu's historical older brother, Mircea, is omitted.
• Vlad addresses the Sultan holding him and Radu captive as Mehmed. In reality, the Sultan who took the boys was Murad II. Vlad later waged a military campaign against Murad's son, Mehmed II, who was several months younger than Vlad.
• There was no single Castle Dracul as depicted in the film. Vlad was born in Transylvania, but it was in the town of Sighisoara. Transylvania was not a region of Vlad's domain as implied in the film; Vlad ruled over Wallachia, and Transylvania was a province of Hungary. Vlad was never based in Transylvania; the closest similarity to the Castle Dracul featured in the film is Poienari Castle in Wallachia.
• No mention is made of the fact that Vlad was made a puppet ruler of Wallachia by the Turks in 1448.
• Vlad is seen assassinating "Prince Carl", who apparently took over after the death of Vlad II Dracul. The Prince preceding Vlad's 1456-62 reign was Vladislav II, who had also reigned from 1447-48.
• Mihnea cel Rău, Vlad's first son, is renamed Vlad, after his father, in the film.
• Vlad's second wife, unnamed but presumably Ilona Szilágyi, is shown in the film to be the daughter of King Janos (who, in this part of the film, takes the place of Matthias Corvinus). Sources differ over Ilona's relation to Matthias, but it is most commonly accepted that she was his cousin.
• Vlad was killed in battle with the Turks, not by the hand of Radu as in the film. Radu was already dead himself at the time of Vlad's death.

External links

• Dark Prince: The True Story of Dracula at IMDb