Product Details

• Actors: Jason Scott Lee, Jason London, Roy Scheider, Diane Neal, Alexandra Wescourt
• Directors: Patrick Lussier
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 5.1)
• Subtitles: Spanish, French
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Studio: Dimension
• DVD Release Date: July 12, 2005
• Run Time: 86 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0007US7D0
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #104,838 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Dracula 3 - Legacy" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

DRACULA 3:LEGACY - DVD Movie

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The heir apparent to John Carpenter's legacy has been found, July 26, 2005

By 

Cubist (United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dracula 3 - Legacy (DVD)

Move over Blade, there is a new vampire franchise in town. Tired of slick, over-produced horror movies like Underworld? Look no further. Dracula III: Legacy is the latest installment in a surprisingly durable franchise. Director Patrick Lussier has been quietly picking up the slack from a now dormant John Carpenter by making straightforward, atmospheric B-horror movies.

Jason Scott Lee is surprisingly effective as a driven vampire hunter. Armed with a nasty looking scythe, he is a very efficient (and cool) killer of the undead. He wouldn't be out of place in a Carpenter film as one of the auteur's trademark, enigmatic men-of-action, like Snake Plissken in Escape from New York. In contrast to Lee's no-nonsense character, Jason London is the easy-going sidekick that provides the film's doses of comic relief. These two actors have come a long way from films like Dragon (Lee) and Mallrats (London) to form an excellent duo.

Dracula III features a good balance of cool characters, the right amount of exposition and a beefed up vampire presence that was lacking from Dracula II. This last installment of the trilogy captures a modern gothic atmosphere beautifully, putting other contemporary Hollywood horror movies to shame. The heir apparent to John Carpenter's legacy has been found and it should be interesting to see what Lussier does next.

There is an audio commentary by writer/director Patrick Lussier, producer/co-writer Joel Soisson and special makeup designer Gary Tunnicliffe. This is chatty track as the three men discuss their movie and the challenges of shooting on a budget.

"A Conversation with Patrick Lussier on the Mythology of Vampires." The director was fascinated by the depiction of vampires all over the world and in particular Romania's Vlad the Impaler and Bram Stoker's take on the legend.

"A Conversation with Special Makeup Designer Gary J. Tunnicliffe." He talks about the hardships of working in the cold weather of Romania and how he had to ship in fake blood and reassemble the plastic weapons because they kept breaking in the cold weather.

"Cast Auditions" features footage of four of the supporting cast members who were taken from Europe.

"Deleted Scene-Flat Tire" features our heroes fixing a flat tire and encountering some undead along the way.

Also included is an "Alternate Ending" that features a much more upbeat ending than what is in the existing version.

For dedicated fans of this franchise there are the original story treatments for all three movies that allow one to see them in their early stages and how Lussier initially envisioned them.

Finally, there are trailers for the first two Dracula movies.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Father Uffizi and his scythe take on Dracula in Romania, July 12, 2005

By 

Lawrance M. Bernabo (The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Dracula 3 - Legacy (DVD)

Although the title might suggest otherwise, "Dracula III: The Legacy" is not the final part of a trilogy but rather the second half of a story begun in "Dracula II: The Ascension." In other words, you do not need to go back to "Dracula 2000," because there is really nothing in that movie that has anything to do with these other two. This may or may not have anything to do with the audacious but rather ludicrous idea that the reason vampires loath Christian symbols is that Dracula is really (wait for it) Judas Iscariot, but except for the fact that at the end of "Dracula 2000" the title character is a charred corpse and at the start of "Dracula II" he is a charred corpse, there is really nothing else to connect the dots (and for what it is worth, yes, I buy the explanation for why Dracula looks different in each of these films).

When we go to the "to be continued" end of "Dracula II," Luke (Jason London) is desperate to find out what happened to the woman of his affections, Elizabeth Blaine (Diane Neal). Luke is traveling with Father Uffizi (Jason Scott Lee), a vampire killer who uses a scythe to decapitate the undead. Uffizi remains at odds with the Church because his superior, Cardinal Siqueros (Roy Scheider), insists that the goal is not just to kill vampires but to try saving their souls as well. Father Uffizi and Luke are making their way through the Romanian countryside where they have to worry not only about vampires, but revolutionaries and other people with guns. They discover a British TV reporter, Julia Hughes (Alexandra Westcourt), who though she was covering the war but has stumbled upon Dracula's plot to use the locals to stock his blood cellar. The whole concern about the scientific properties of vampire blood and the emphasis on all of those ancient Eastern European superstitions regarding vampires now take a back seat to rescuing Elizabeth and stopping the orgy of blood sucking taking place over at the Dracula place.

This 2005 film is again directed by Patrick Lussier, who co-wrote the script with Joel Soisson. Lee is certainly a compelling lead figure, and London manages to provide the comic relief without becoming laughable in the wrong way, but the problem is that in a Dracula movie the big bad vampire should pop up for more than the conclusion. Granted, the film really is more about Uffizi to the point where you wonder why it has to be a Dracula film. But then it would be too much of a Blade rip-off. At this point it reminds me more of the "Hellraiser" direct to video releases where Pinhead usually shows up just at the end. If you are going to go this route then you really need the journey to be a lot more interesting, but what we have here is nothing like going off to see Marlon Brando in "Apocalypse Now."

Lussier filmed both "Dracula II" and "Dracula III" at the same time in Romania, but for some reason I have not bothered to investigate we have had to wait all this time for this direct to video release. The production values are pretty good (you get your money's worth in Romania apparently) and I liked doing a contemporary film back on Dracula's home turf. But Rutger Hauer is not simply wasted, his performance is counter-productive. Ultimately the whole idea here is that Uffizi is arriving at a personal crucible, and the Dracula he finds at the end is not worthy of the moment, especially given the ending they want to go with for the movie (I was going to say for the series as well, but who knows: they might be trying to squeeze a few quarts of blood out of this storyline).

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars By and large, a better-than-average vampire movie, October 27, 2005

By 

Daniel Jolley "darkgenius" (Shelby, North Carolina USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Dracula 3 - Legacy (DVD)

I went in to Wes Craven Presents Dracula III: Legacy cold, without having seen either Dracula 2000 or Wes Craven Presents Dracula II: Ascension, so I can't really compare what has come before with what takes place here. I was cautiously optimistic about the film, though (the name Wes Craven doesn't necessarily guarantee quality the way it once did). There are some things I didn't like about Dracula III, but overall it's a better than average vampire film. There could have been more blood and gore, and some of the special effects toward the end smelled slightly of cheese, but Jason Scott Lee pretty much carries the film. His character, Father Uffizi, isn't your typical vampire hunter - and he's certainly not your typical priest - and I think that gives the film a special little spin. Unfortunately, the movie is short on hot vampire chicks. Diane Neal more than fits the bill, but she's limited to the film's final scenes.

Father Uffizi is going after Dracula, with or without the Church's blessing (the Church being represented by Roy Scheider in a short, nonessential cameo). Unfortunately, he takes an annoying do-gooder sidekick with him. I can understand Luke's (Jason London) motivation, since the woman he loves is now a plaything of the vampire and it's apparently all his fault, but his is the kind of character vampire movies just don't need - unless they're going for comedy. The two make their way to Romania, a country in the throes of civil war, and fight their way through a number of obstacles - both human and vampiric. Along the way, they take up with an English journalist who is about to get the scoop of her life (assuming she lives to report it, of course) when she learns that the real source of the trouble in Romania is a vampire. As you might expect, the final scenes play out in Dracula's abode, and I can't say I was all that impressed with the head honcho blood-sucker. He's not all that bright to have caused so much trouble for so many centuries and his security system could certainly do with some improvements - and it takes more than harsh whispering to make a vampire truly impressive. Half the time, I had to strain to understand whatever rubbish Rutger Hauer was putting out there. I liked the ending, though - it's not unpredictable, but it is subtle.

The special effects are pretty darn good for the most part; human appendages tend to be less impressive when they're separated from the body, and I thought the special effects of the climactic scenes could have been better, but I'm not really complaining. Okay, I will complain about one thing. Uffizi has this deadly arsenal of blades, but we usually have to settle for watching blood splatter on the walls rather than see the blades do their dirty work. There's no shortage of that blood, though.

It's hard to offer a new take on the Dracula legend, but this movie does a pretty good job of it. I've certainly seen worse - much, much worse. Seeing Dracula III won't make your life complete, but I think most vampire fans will enjoy it.