Dracula III: Legacy (R)
Dread Central; IMDb; Miramax; Rotten Tomatoes; Wikipedia
streaming sites: Amazon; Google Play; iTunes; Vudu; YouTube

This came out in 2005, but I didn't see it until 2015. It's the second direct-to-video sequel to Dracula 2000, following Dracula II: Ascension. Apparently it was somewhat better received than the first sequel, though personally I'm not sure which movie I liked better. Maybe I liked them about equally, at least I'm rating them the same. I guess I can see why some people might think the third movie is better than the second, though if I were forced to decide which I preferred, I'd probably go with the second. In my review of that movie, I said it was more serious than the first movie, and I daresay this one is even more serious than the second. In some ways that's certainly a good thing, but... in other ways, I guess I kind of feel like if a movie is going to be really serious, it should be better than this; I'm more willing to cut a movie slack if it's obviously trying to be funny or absurd or something. Which is not to say this is a bad movie, because it's not. It's not bad at all.

Anyway, it's set five years after the second movie. Luke has become Father Uffizi's protégé, apparently. Together they've been hunting vampires while searching for Dracula. Luke's main motivation is to find Elizabeth, in the hopes of saving her, though Uffizi keeps telling him that if they find her, she won't be the woman he knew. Meanwhile, Uffizi himself continues to fight his own vampiric infection. And um... at the start of the movie, they learn that Dracula is in Romania, so they go there. And there's a civil war going on there, apparently because rebels know that the government is being taken over by vampires, though the military that's fighting on behalf of the government doesn't know that. And I guess there are mercenaries who are working for Dracula, as well. Also, NATO peacekeepers are involved... actually, maybe it's they who don't know about the vampires. I'm really not very clear on any of this, it was all sort of confusing to me.

Uffizi and Luke meet a British reporter named Julia, whose helicopter had crashed. (She works for EBC News, which I assume is an expy for BBC News.) Her cameraman is with her, but their pilot died soon after the crash. And... before long they're all attacked by vampires who clearly had been member of a circus. That's a very minor part of the film, but honestly, I would much rather watch a whole movie about circus vampires. If such a thing exists, please let me know. Um... hmmm... what else? It's like two thirds of the movie before they reach Dracula's castle, and a bit longer before we see Dracula himself (who is now played by Rutger Hauer). It really is amazing how small a part Dracula actually plays in any of these three movies, but he seems to be less important in each film than he was in the preceding one. Anyway, I don't want to spoil how it ends, but it's all rather dramatic.