Vlad starts as four foreign exchange students arrive in Romania where they are to travel to the Carpathian mountains in order to conduct research on their respective thesis which all involve Dracula, Vampires, Romania or the legends surrounding them, a guy named Adrian (Billy Zane) & his mate Rafescu (Brad Dourif) accompanies them as guides. On the way they come across a time travelling woman named Ilona (Iva Hasperger) who was once married to the infamous Vlad Tepes (Francesco Quinn). One of the students Lindsey (Monica Davidescu) has a secret, she has a ancient necklace that belonged to Vlad & supposedly gave him his powers & intends to return it after her Grandfather stole it during the second World War. But the necklace gives Vlad his power back & he sets out to reclaim his wife & the necklace...
Written & directed by Michael D. Sellers this confusing mess of a romantic Vampire drama doesn't have a lot going for it, in fact I would have little hesitation in saying Vlad is rather anaemic. The script is a mess, there's all these flashback sequences that don't make much sense as well as ideas that just seem out of place like the whole sub-plot with the necklace & Ilona who for some strange reason that is never explained manages to travel hundreds of years into the future seemingly at random. Vlad isn't really a traditional Vampire film to be fair to it, it focuses on Vlad (the real life person who the character of Dracula was supposedly based on) & tries to paint him as a tortured soul as we see these annoying flashbacks to his past & what he has suffered. A character driven film about Dracula? What is the world coming to? Vlad never drinks anyone's blood, he randomly appears about halfway through the film with no explanation, he can walk in the sunlight & can change into a Wolf. He doesn't seem to have much of a plan except get his wife back & the necklace, hardly the most exciting plot or motivation for a character ever. The other character's are no better, no-one is likable & they all do stupid things & a sub-plot about a secret organisation trying to steal the necklace is raised but then completely forgotten about. The narrative is also very bitty, the location changes constantly with little regard to continuity & scenes don't seem to flow into each other that smoothly which left me somewhat confused.
So the actual story & script has virtually zero entertainment value as far as I am concerned but to give Vlad some credit it does look quite nice on occasion, there's a nice visual style to it & while sometimes it can look a bit too staged it's pretty nice to look at. One thing I have to mention are the accents, they are absolutely terrible & is Billy Zane meant to be Romanian or Russian? The thick poorly executed accents make some of the dialogue hard to understand & at certain points character's randomly start talking in Romanian which is annoying too. Vlad has no gore whatsoever, in fact I don't think a single drop of human blood is seen during the entire film, a Wolf is shot at the end & it's body is seen but that's it. This is a very soft film. There are one or two clumsily edited sex scenes randomly inserted into the film but they don't improve it any. Vlad goes for storytelling & drama rather than scares & gore which is fine if you have a good engaging story that's well written, unfortunately Vlad doesn't.
Actually shot in Buchrest in Romania the film certainly has an authentic look & feel about it, as I said it does look quite nice & I'll give it that. One of the hardest working men in the acting business Billy Zane is the 'name' actor here & he doesn't seem that interested with a poor accent & has the good sense to be killed off before the hour mark, the only other actor of note is Brad Dourif who is a genre regular.
Vlad is part historical drama, part romance, part horror & all crap. Sorry but that's the way I feel about it, to be honest it didn't do anything for me at all & I just thought it was a mess of ideas none of which come together with any coherency. Not recommend.
Written & directed by Michael D. Sellers this confusing mess of a romantic Vampire drama doesn't have a lot going for it, in fact I would have little hesitation in saying Vlad is rather anaemic. The script is a mess, there's all these flashback sequences that don't make much sense as well as ideas that just seem out of place like the whole sub-plot with the necklace & Ilona who for some strange reason that is never explained manages to travel hundreds of years into the future seemingly at random. Vlad isn't really a traditional Vampire film to be fair to it, it focuses on Vlad (the real life person who the character of Dracula was supposedly based on) & tries to paint him as a tortured soul as we see these annoying flashbacks to his past & what he has suffered. A character driven film about Dracula? What is the world coming to? Vlad never drinks anyone's blood, he randomly appears about halfway through the film with no explanation, he can walk in the sunlight & can change into a Wolf. He doesn't seem to have much of a plan except get his wife back & the necklace, hardly the most exciting plot or motivation for a character ever. The other character's are no better, no-one is likable & they all do stupid things & a sub-plot about a secret organisation trying to steal the necklace is raised but then completely forgotten about. The narrative is also very bitty, the location changes constantly with little regard to continuity & scenes don't seem to flow into each other that smoothly which left me somewhat confused.
So the actual story & script has virtually zero entertainment value as far as I am concerned but to give Vlad some credit it does look quite nice on occasion, there's a nice visual style to it & while sometimes it can look a bit too staged it's pretty nice to look at. One thing I have to mention are the accents, they are absolutely terrible & is Billy Zane meant to be Romanian or Russian? The thick poorly executed accents make some of the dialogue hard to understand & at certain points character's randomly start talking in Romanian which is annoying too. Vlad has no gore whatsoever, in fact I don't think a single drop of human blood is seen during the entire film, a Wolf is shot at the end & it's body is seen but that's it. This is a very soft film. There are one or two clumsily edited sex scenes randomly inserted into the film but they don't improve it any. Vlad goes for storytelling & drama rather than scares & gore which is fine if you have a good engaging story that's well written, unfortunately Vlad doesn't.
Actually shot in Buchrest in Romania the film certainly has an authentic look & feel about it, as I said it does look quite nice & I'll give it that. One of the hardest working men in the acting business Billy Zane is the 'name' actor here & he doesn't seem that interested with a poor accent & has the good sense to be killed off before the hour mark, the only other actor of note is Brad Dourif who is a genre regular.
Vlad is part historical drama, part romance, part horror & all crap. Sorry but that's the way I feel about it, to be honest it didn't do anything for me at all & I just thought it was a mess of ideas none of which come together with any coherency. Not recommend.