Vintage Film Takes: “Dracula 2000” (2000)

My take on a film that I loved that many people hated and how Wes Craven influenced me at such a young age.

It was the summer of 2001. I was at a Blockbuster in northern New Jersey with my father and my older brother. Every weekend, we’d go out and rent two movies: one would be my choice while the other would be my brother’s. He picked out the Jet Li film, “The Black Mask,” while I was debating between two films: “Dude, Where’s My Car” and “Dracula 2000”.

As a kid in the 90s, I grew up watching films and shows that were sometimes not suitable for a 5-year-old. Sure, I grew up on “Space Jam,” “Mighty Joe Young,” & cartoons like “X-Men,” “Pokemon,” & “Rocket Power” but, my parents were liberal enough to let my brother and I watch “Deep Blue Sea,” “The Matrix,” and most notably, “The X-Files.” That show can certainly be considered a catalyst to my curiosity about anything horror or horror adjacent. I rented every VHS tape of the “X-Files,” saw the movie when it came out in ’98, and even had the film’s entire action figure line. Despite all of that, my father (being the hard-nosed tiebreaker at the time) insisted on me choosing “Dude, Where’s My Car” instead.

My enthusiasm that day was somewhat deflated: I was really fascinated with “Dracula 2000” despite…