The premise is original: Abraham van Helsing (Christopher Plummer), kept alive by milking small amounts of blood from the "remains" of Dracula with leeches and injecting himself, keeps the King Vampire inert and contained in a vault beneath his antique shop in London. Unfortunately, a greedy employee and her gang of really dumb thieves believes there's lots of treasure in the vault. Despite the demise of several of their group, they steal Drac's coffin and head for the US via cargo plane.
They're in the middle of the Atlantic when they suffer the wages of greed, the plane crashes in the Louisiana bayous and Drac, played with superb restraint by Gerard Butler, goes to New Orleans in the middle of Mardi Gras looking for van Helsing's estranged daughter, Mary (Justine Waddell). Why? Well, it seems those little transfusions her estranged daddy has been taking has altered her own genetic structure. She's now related to the Count--sort of.
Meantime, van Helsing's young assistant, Jonny Lee Miller (Simon Shappard) has learned the truth, and he, too, travels to Mardi Gras in hopes of saving the boss's daughter from a fate worse than death--or undeath, as it were.
Because of those aforementioned trailers, I was totally unprepared for the controlled moderation of the the production. Like Christopher Lee, Butler chose to keep most of the Counts rage and passion under lock and key, waiting for just the right moment to let it slip and then seizing it and cramming it back where it came from. Nor does he wallow in the angst that has afflicted many of the more recent Draculas. He is a predator, pure and simple.
Equally subdued, Plummer keeps van Helsing's obsession on the up side of psychosis, which is a welcome relief as well.
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