Rating: C+
Dir: Vinayan
Star: Sudheer Sukumaran, Prabhu, Monal Gajjar, Nassar
Seems to be that about every fifteen years or so, Indian cinema crosses over. Back in 2008, it was Slumdog Millionaire which – even though directed by a Scot – brought Bollywood into the mainstream. Last year, it was the batshit insanity of RRR which became the world’s most popular non-English title on Netflix at one point, and won the Oscar for best song. However, the reality is that most Indian films are not like those, any more than most Hollywood films are like Avatar. What we see outside of India is very much the cream of the crop, and there are almost two thousand movies a year made there. Most are not RRR. Most, I venture to suggest, are much closer to the standard of Dracula 2012. which did not trouble the Academy the year it came out.
Which is to say, some elements are a bit crap. As ever, the grade here reflects the entertainment value obtained from the movie, rather than its merits as a piece of cinema. It functions better as the former than the latter, I think it’s safe to say. Though I will admit I did find myself warming to it over the course of proceedings. Or maybe just adapting to the style of this production in Malayalam (one of India’s 22 official languages, ranked about tenth by number of speakers). It certainly starts off on really shaky territory, and manages to make even HoverBat™ look good. We’ll get to that. However, once it settles down, it is a pretty straight adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel, and I enjoyed seeing how those elements were fitted into an Indian setting.
It begins in Transylvania – they actually filmed there, at Bran Castle – where Roy Thomas (Sukumaran) and his new wife Lucy are on holiday, and visit Dracula’s castle. Roy is a bit of a student of the occult, and makes the rather dumb decision to carry out a ceremony in the castle. To nobody’s surprise except his, this succeeds in summoning the spirit of the Count, who possesses Roy. This would be okay, except for the fact the makers chose to depict this by rendering Roy as a half-human, half-bat thing (top), with fur, muscles and among the worst CGI I’ve seen in a film. Not a Bollywood film. Ever. The only thing worse than the concept is the execution. And the concept is terrible.
You would be entirely forgiven for switching it off at this point, and going, “That’s enough Indian cinema for me.” We persisted, and although BatMan did re-appear from time to time thereafter, we just looked elsewhere. Dracula returns to India in the persona of Professor William D’Souza, taking up residence in a large house there, and this is where the film begins to resemble Stoker’s work. Rather than solicitor Jonathan Harker, we get Raju (Prabhu), a moving man. A picture of his fiancee, Meena (Gajjar), falls out of his pocket, and Dracula is struck by her resemblance to his long-lost love. The Count gets all predatory on her ass, though first goes after her sister, Thara, because her occult knowledge poses a potential threat.
Meanwhile, as in Stoker’s book, we have an array of characters assembled on the side of good. The Van Helsing replacement is Guru Soorayan (Nassar), who is eventually able to convince others that vampires, as well as the threat posed by Dracula, are real. These include a doctor, presumably subbing for Seward; the local police commissioner, who happens to be Roy’s brother; and a conveniently passing Romanian bishop. There’s even a Renfield-alike, a wild man who roams the woods muttering about his master and eating things which are definitely not on the menu at my local curry house. We also get stakings, victims getting rid of the things which can protect them and, eventually, a big fist-fight between Dracula and Raju. Okay, that wasn’t in the book.
As mentioned, I felt this improved as it went on, though at 136 minutes, could definitely have used trimming. That’s nine minutes longer than Coppola’s version, which had pacing problems of its own. There are only two musical numbers: one of which is a bit crap. But I did enjoy the other, “Prince of Darkness“: it’s pretty much what you would expect a Bollywood song about Dracula to be. Sukumaran has decent presence as the Count: he feels a bit like a Malayalam version of Adam Driver. Indeed, most of the performances are decent, though save for Thara, the female characters are underdeveloped by 21st-century standards. As eye-candy though, they are perfectly acceptable bits of IndoTotty.
The film was made in 3D, and there are times where you can definitely tell. The opening credits are almost nausea-inducing in 2D, and I dread to think what the full experience would have been like. However, like the rest of the film, this seems to settle down as we proceed. In some ways, the Victorian era of the original novel and Indian culture are similarly quite strait-laced when it comes to depictions of sexuality, making the transfer of the story a good fit. Nowhere is this more obvious, when we see Roy’s wife taking a bath… with her towel on. Similarly, throughout the film, there’s a lot of meaningful glances and the like. But it’s all very repressed.
This is definitely an old-school adaptation here, even if Dracula spends more time with his shirt off, than any vampire this side of a Stephanie Meyer novel. The approach to the material is generally sound, without any attempts at meta-horror or humour, and it’s certainly respectful to Bram Stoker’s source material. With a sharper hand on the editing console – and I’d start by excising all traces of BatMan – this could have been a better than average entry in the modern vampire sub-genre. Even as is, it’s likely little if any worse than the other Dracula movie with the same gimmick from the era, Dario Argento’s Dracula 3D.
This review is part of our October 2023 feature, 31 Days of Vampires.