The Dumbest Dracula Movie Wasted A Brilliant Idea

Dracula has inspired more cinematic re-imaginings than any other iconic character — in 2025 alone, we got two new (and wildly different) stories from Radu Jude and Luc Besson. Bram Stoker’s classic novel is seldom adapted faithfully, but it endures because storytellers use its foundations to explore contemporary ideas and concerns.

Dracula 2000, on the other hand, supposedly exists because of its title. Black Phone director Scott Derrickson claims that Bob Weinstein asked him to work on the film’s script, even though the producer said it was “terrible,” because “it’s called Dracula 2000,” and the tie-in to the upcoming millennium was too good to pass up. The resulting movie was an obvious rush job that executive producer Wes Craven publicly lamented, but amid the movie’s pure “how do you do, fellow kids” nature are glimmers of something more fascinating and challenging.

Directed by Patrick Lussier and released 25 years ago today, Dracula 2000’s connections to Stoker’s novel are, at best, tenuous. There are vague references to key scenes, and familiar character names are used, but technically, this is a sequel of sorts. The Van Helsing family has kept Dracula (played by pre-300 Gerard Butler) locked away in an attempt to determine the origin of vampirism, but now he’s free and chasing hot women through New Orleans, one of whom is the estranged daughter of the vampire hunter who chained him in his coffin.

Most of the movie is a blatant attempt to latch onto the hot vampires of the ‘90s (think Blade and Buffy), and the burgeoning nu-metal boom. Dracula 2000’s score is loaded with songs by System of a Down, Marilyn Manson, and Saliva, and in that regard, it’s not unlike another vampire movie of the era: the misguided sequel to Interview with the Vampire, Queen of the Damned. Like Queen, Dracula 2000 was made quickly to cash in on these already-fleeting trends, and it makes for an incongruous viewing experience. It reeks of a boardroom of old men asking what’s hip, and shoehorning the answers in without much thought. This is a movie desperately trying to be erotic, and there’s nothing less erotic than the grunting sound of nu-metal.

Most of the story is flimsy and two-dimensional. Every woman becomes lascivious and evil the moment they lay eyes on Dracula, and while Dracula himself is hot (they cast young, curly-haired Gerard Butler for a reason), he lacks the necessary malice to be truly threatening. The best Draculas require that balance of allure and danger, and Dracula 2000 is devoid of the latter. When he picks up women from the Virgin Megastore (get it?), you’re not scared for anyone.

And yet Dracula 2000 also has one of the most unexpected and intriguing re-imaginings of the character ever committed to film. In the climax, we discover that Dracula is actually Judas Iscariot, punished with eternal life and a thirst for blood for his betrayal of Jesus. It’s an out-there concept, but a thematically consistent one, and it ties into so much vampire lore with a savvy eye towards its cultural roots. What a unique way to explain why vampires are terrified of Christian symbols! Alas, it’s also an idea that deserves a more nuanced canvas than a horny teen horror made because the title sounded cool. There’s an entire saga to explore in the intersections of vampirism, Christianity, anti-Semitism, and cultural iconography, and it probably shouldn’t be in any movie starring Gerard Butler.

Dracula 2000 was not the megahit Bob Weinstein wanted it to be, but it still got two straight-to-video sequels. Both of them, Dracula II: Ascension and Dracula III: Legacy, also feature nuggets of potential amid the tired cliches. The former, for example, is one of the only vampire movies to include the oft-forgotten lore of mustard seeds and knots as folkloric wards against vampires. Both films also build on the idea of Judas Iscariot as the first vampire, and how that would play into the Catholic Church’s doctrine of absolution and sin, but they’re still mostly shlock that’s starved of budget and the ability to bring their ideas to fruition. If ever there was a Dracula movie that deserved a remake, though, it’s this one. As long as they don’t try to shoehorn in the popular music of the time again. Benson Boone vampire movie, anyone?

Dracula 2000 is available to rent on Apple TV.