Thursday, December 28, 2006

BBC Dracula - first thoughts

I've just watched the BBCs new version of Dracula and my first thoughts were it was pretty good.

The story is radically different from Stoker's original and despite being worried that Marc Warren was perhaps too young to play Dracula I was impressed by his performance and impressed by the way the Count was portrayed. This is a brutal, evil and calculating Dracula.

The show was on BBC 1 and, when it finished, on BBC 4, there was a 30 minute amusing clip show about Dracula called Transylvania Babylon - I do hope that it is an extra on the DVD.

No review, as the Directors cut DVD comes out in a couple of weeks, so I'll review this when I have that - the programme as it stood had moments where I thought there might have been expansion and I'm hopping we'll see that in the Director's Cut. Not too sure about the ending, but I'll explain when I review - thus this is an advanced spoiler warning also.

2 comments:

Sophia said...

Hi Taliesin, I saw it too and was surprised, perturbed but also a bit impressed. Have blogged on it too, with a link to you in case you find any more reviews.

Taliesin_ttlg said...

Starfisher

Thanks for that, and I know what you mean by preturbing... I've come across a few reviews that really hated it - I think this unfair.

It certainly isn't the best version of Dracula but I've seen worse productions and I did enjoy myself as I sat and watched it.

Warren had something Byronic in his presence and the change in the characters was unusual, not true to the book but refreshing.

Hopefully my DVD will arrive swiftly and I'll get a full review up asap.