Dracula was not always such a bad guy. Once upon a time, he was just a ruler trying to protect his family and his people from invading hordes. Sometimes, when you’re trying to do the right thing, you just have to become a walking member of the vampiric undead.
That’s the argument of Dracula Untold, which finally comes to cinemas this Friday as part of Universal’s “Monsterverse.” The film stars Luke Evans as our titular vampire who starts out as plain old Vlad Dracule, a Transylvanian prince and family man. When his peaceful reign is threatened by Ottoman ruler Mehmed II (Dominic Cooper) with his own son nearly drafted into the army, Vlad takes matters into his own hands and becomes a vampire in order to fight the Turks.
In the latest clip from the film, we see Vlad deciding that he’s not going to let his son go into the army after all, instead opting to slaughter all the soldiers who show up to take the boy away. Realizing that Mehmed is not going to let this breach go by unpunished, Vlad turns to some nasty-looking mountains in the distance. This man obviously has a foolproof plan.
While we all laugh at Universal’s attempt to capitalize on the cohesive universe concept done so effectively by Marvel Studios, remember that the Universal monster movies of the 1930s were among the first to tie together numerous characters from different films. Films like Frankenstein Meets The Wolfman and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein brought together Universal monsters long before Captain America ever teamed up with Iron Man.
Before Universal manages to create their new Monsterverse, though, they’re going to need a few big hits. The Wolfman didn’t do so well; neither did Van Helsing. Will Dracula Untold inaugurate another glory era of monster movie franchises? We can only wait and see.
Dracula Untold hits cinemas October 10. You can check out the featurette and new TV spot below.
