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.
Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary (2003)
Tomatometer
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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.
Theatrical Release:May 14, 2003 Limited
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... 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 been styled to mimic the earliest works of cinema, DRACULA: PAGES FROM A VIRGIN'S DIARY is grainy and its light is often distorted. It uses large, emphatic title cards that introduce the characters, give loose plot structure, and serve as ironically comic punctuation to the action. There are sound effects that bring reality to some of the more gruesome vampire-hunting sequences. And there are moments of color--for instance, when blood is crudely drawn from the arm of the victim's fiance into a large antique tube, or when Dracula tosses his bright green dollar bills into the air. The film is divided into two chapters dedicated to Dracula's two victims. In the opening sequences, Lucy (Tara Birtwhistle), a pale vampy creature clad in a white gown, flirts with three suitors, but abandons all of them to welcome the elegant and seductive Dracula (Zhang Wei-Quang) into her arms late at night. After Lucy has passed, the focus turns to a more virginal, demure victim: Nina (CindyMarie Small). Pursuing the demon are a group of forthright men bearing stakes, garlic, crosses, and other tools of the trade. With DRACULA, Madden has created a truly inspired work that successfully combines ballet, film, and horror. [More]
Starring: Zhang Wei-Qiang, Tara Birtwhistle, CindyMarie Small, David Moroni
Starring: Zhang Wei-Qiang, Tara Birtwhistle, CindyMarie Small, David Moroni, Johnny Wright, Stephane Leonard, Matthew Johnson, Keir Knight, Brent Neale, Stephanie Ballard
Director: Guy Maddin
Director: Guy Maddin
Producer: Vonnie Von Helmolt
Composer: Gustav Mahler
Studio: Zeitgeist Films
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Reviews for Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary
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.
A production that is as sexually charged as it is beautifully designed.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
A dance version that gorgeously captures the Royal Winnepeg Ballet's artistry while razzing the xenophobia and carnal hysteria underpinning Bram Stoker's story.
Relying on the stage performance alone, there is little interesting about watching Dracula, Lucy, or Nina, pirouetting and prancing within their milieu.
It's a thoroughly rousing parade of invention. And visual? Like nothing you've ever seen.
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.
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.
Much more about the hows (and maybe the whys) than it is about the whats.
A diversion that only makes you wish you could have seen Royal Winnipeg's original ballet.
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