
DRACULA UNTOLD has the legendary Count replenish his corpuscles, just as moviemakers periodically bloodsuck whatever they can drain from his coffin to their coffers. Doubtless this 2014 bite will not be the last such transfusion. It just feels like it, as Bram Stoker’s vampire vision leaves his neatly tailored suits and cultivated manners behind for history’s Vlad the Impaler, Romania’s score-racking Turk vanquisher of the 1500s.
It’s a fusion of graphic comic bleakness blended to Middle Ages slaughter. Decked out with decent art direction, the acting is all right, the costumes and slice & dice prop doohickeys show able craft. Yet the 95 minutes feel endless, the mayhem is so far out of any plausible realm—both historically and fantasy-wise—that all it does is numb you. A big red hit, a critical abattoir, and set up for a sequel. Luke Evans plays Vlad, Charles Dance is “Master Vampire.”

