An elaborate, self-conscious but arresting take on the Dracula myth.
Comment
09/26/07
Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary (2003)
86 %
Reviews Counted: 58 Fresh: 50 Rotten:8 Average Rating: 7.4/10
Consensus:
Guy Maddin's film is a richly sensuous and dreamy interpretation of Dracula that reinvigorates the genre.
Runtime: 75 mins
Synopsis: This silent, black and white film, adapted from the Royal Winnipeg Ballet's interpretation of Bram Stoker's DRACULA, is Guy Maddin's dramatic masterpiece. It is an atmospheric, gothic work full of dance and eroticism, accompanied by Gustav Mahler's music. Clearly a modern film that has... [More]
Genre: Dramas
Starring: Zhang Wei-Qiang, Tara Birtwhistle, CindyMarie Small, David Moroni, Johnny Wright
Reviews
Top Critic
A fevered, sexy take on the material, it plays up the desires of the female players, the repression of the men and Dracula's status as all-purpose object of dread and desire.
04/01/06
Top Critic Top Critic Top Critic
It will no doubt leave ballet fans somewhat nonplussed, but this evocative danse macabre is an unusually insightful addition to the Count's long list of cinematic appearances.
11/25/03
Top Critic
Though it sounds like an offbeat idea even for horror fans, the tech work is so well done that it could disarm unwary buffs attracted by the campy title.
09/26/07
Top Critic
A production that is as sexually charged as it is beautifully designed.
12/06/05
Maddin’s Dracula takes us fantastically through gothic places that Bram Stoker failed to report in a production that is as sexually charged as it is beautifully designed.
08/17/04
Marries B&W silent horror-movie style with beautifully eerie ballet in a succulently cinematic, lustfully melodramatic adaptation that is at once wholly unique and uncommonly faithful to Bram Stoker's classic novel.
06/04/04
Anybody who’s willing to bring their own ideas about sex, love, and bloodletting to the film will likely find themselves sucked into Maddin’s growing cult.
05/18/04
It's a throwback to the days when horror movies often had a certain visual grandeur. And while one may miss a modern frisson or two, there's still a great deal of dreadful beauty to relish.
05/07/04
Just when you think that holly stakes, garlic, crucifixes and capes are all there is to vampire stories, Maddin and the Royal Winnipeg put Dracula back on his toes.
05/07/04
This film does for ballet what Robert Altman's recent dud The Company couldn't: It brings the dance form alive on screen, at once making it sexy, stylish and relevant.
03/10/04
A dance version that gorgeously captures the Royal Winnepeg Ballet's artistry while razzing the xenophobia and carnal hysteria underpinning Bram Stoker's story.
01/29/04
Relying on the stage performance alone, there is little interesting about watching Dracula, Lucy, or Nina, pirouetting and prancing within their milieu.
12/31/03
It's a thoroughly rousing parade of invention. And visual? Like nothing you've ever seen.
12/12/03
In a year in which so many movies have (pun intended) sucked, Dracula: Pages From a Virgin’s Diary stands even higher as a triumph of artistry and entertainment.
10/27/03
Much more about the hows (and maybe the whys) than it is about the whats.
10/23/03
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• Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary at Rotten Tomatoes
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• Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary at AskMen
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