To even call it a mockbuster is probably generous. Even the bad special effects we normally expect from The Asylum are absent here. Gone, too, are any parts of the original Stoker novel that require shots on location (save for a standard-issue CGI 'castle'), and our small cast of under a dozen appear to be the only remaining people on Earth. "D:TOLV" manages to make Hallmark movies look positively lavish by comparison.
That tiny budget shows up here in spades, as the movie eagerly dives into all of the dullest (and cheapest to film) parts of the novel- people talking, people reading books, people squinting their eyes and furrowing their brows- while excising just about anything that would require any effort to film. Instead of a mockbuster, we get a low-rent "X-Files" knockoff with Val Helsing (Prouty) as skeptic Scully and Harker (Woodcock) as believer Mulder, skulking about and 'solving' the mystery. For some reason, Van Helsing and Harker's roles are reversed here compared to the novel- Harker is the vampire expert, not Van Helsing- not that it matters much, or makes anyone the slightest bit more interesting. Neither Prouty nor Woodcock have any other IMDB credits, and it shows in every scene they are in.
Meanwhile, Count Dracula- whose job here is to ramp up the tension and terror until the main characters catch up to what the audience already knows- spends most of the movie hanging out at Van Helsing's apartment, chatting up her pretty girlfriend Mina (Davies).
It's hard to express just how poorly this main(!) character is written, or how badly Jake Herbert (another first timer, coming to us from "Glow Up: Britain's Next Make-Up Star") portrays him. He is quite possibly the least menacing, least scary, least interesting Dracula to ever be committed to film, a dull bore who fails to do anything with the few scraps the terrible script assigns to him. His interactions with supposed long-lost love Mina have the chemistry and passion of an insurance agent and her client, chatting in the former's suburban office about deductibles. Aside from an opening scene where he beds Lucy and bites her, he's a nonentity in the horror department.
Speaking of which, poor Lucy (Ana Ilic) gets the short end of the stake here as well. Instead of being the murdered best friend whose death, terrifying resurrection, and tragic end make the menace of Dracula personal to the heroes, she's reduced to a random crime scene victim, whose rebirth as a vampire goes practically unnoticed, and whose quick death is immediately forgotten (side note... these characters apparently inhabit a world in which the human heart is located where the liver should be, as every stake seems to land squarely in the center of a vampire's torso).
In the end, because D:TOLV is dedicated to finding the cheapest and laziest solution to everything, our dollar store Dracula is dispatched after he falls for an obvious ruse by Mina, completely ignoring the stake she's very obviously hiding behind her back until he gets it through the liver- er, heart- and dies. Everyone lives happily ever after until the movie remembers, at the very last moment, that it is supposed to be a Morbius mockbuster; Van Helsing is accordingly transformed into a vampire (after being bitten in the shoulder, vampires apparently being zombies in this world). Like everything else in this movie, it's handled without any effort, emotion, or acting ability; Prouty simply stares into a mirror as her reflection fades away, with nary a shrug. The end. Thankfully.
Tl;dr: A terrible movie, cast with people with zero acting experience (Packer is the only cast member with any other roles), directed by a stock Asylum director, filmed somewhere in Eastern Europe on a Trabant budget, covering only the cheapest and dullest parts of Stoker's novel.
That tiny budget shows up here in spades, as the movie eagerly dives into all of the dullest (and cheapest to film) parts of the novel- people talking, people reading books, people squinting their eyes and furrowing their brows- while excising just about anything that would require any effort to film. Instead of a mockbuster, we get a low-rent "X-Files" knockoff with Val Helsing (Prouty) as skeptic Scully and Harker (Woodcock) as believer Mulder, skulking about and 'solving' the mystery. For some reason, Van Helsing and Harker's roles are reversed here compared to the novel- Harker is the vampire expert, not Van Helsing- not that it matters much, or makes anyone the slightest bit more interesting. Neither Prouty nor Woodcock have any other IMDB credits, and it shows in every scene they are in.
Meanwhile, Count Dracula- whose job here is to ramp up the tension and terror until the main characters catch up to what the audience already knows- spends most of the movie hanging out at Van Helsing's apartment, chatting up her pretty girlfriend Mina (Davies).
It's hard to express just how poorly this main(!) character is written, or how badly Jake Herbert (another first timer, coming to us from "Glow Up: Britain's Next Make-Up Star") portrays him. He is quite possibly the least menacing, least scary, least interesting Dracula to ever be committed to film, a dull bore who fails to do anything with the few scraps the terrible script assigns to him. His interactions with supposed long-lost love Mina have the chemistry and passion of an insurance agent and her client, chatting in the former's suburban office about deductibles. Aside from an opening scene where he beds Lucy and bites her, he's a nonentity in the horror department.
Speaking of which, poor Lucy (Ana Ilic) gets the short end of the stake here as well. Instead of being the murdered best friend whose death, terrifying resurrection, and tragic end make the menace of Dracula personal to the heroes, she's reduced to a random crime scene victim, whose rebirth as a vampire goes practically unnoticed, and whose quick death is immediately forgotten (side note... these characters apparently inhabit a world in which the human heart is located where the liver should be, as every stake seems to land squarely in the center of a vampire's torso).
In the end, because D:TOLV is dedicated to finding the cheapest and laziest solution to everything, our dollar store Dracula is dispatched after he falls for an obvious ruse by Mina, completely ignoring the stake she's very obviously hiding behind her back until he gets it through the liver- er, heart- and dies. Everyone lives happily ever after until the movie remembers, at the very last moment, that it is supposed to be a Morbius mockbuster; Van Helsing is accordingly transformed into a vampire (after being bitten in the shoulder, vampires apparently being zombies in this world). Like everything else in this movie, it's handled without any effort, emotion, or acting ability; Prouty simply stares into a mirror as her reflection fades away, with nary a shrug. The end. Thankfully.
Tl;dr: A terrible movie, cast with people with zero acting experience (Packer is the only cast member with any other roles), directed by a stock Asylum director, filmed somewhere in Eastern Europe on a Trabant budget, covering only the cheapest and dullest parts of Stoker's novel.