It's Halloween! The last month has been a wild ride. It was hard to figure out what to review for such an occasion. So I settled on something both horror and comic related. The Batman vs Dracula is a direct-to-DVD film released in 2005. It is a spin-off of the 2004 Batman show, and drew some inspiration from the 1991 comic Batman & Dracula: Red Rain. This is probably one of my personal favorite Batman movies. It's not as good as The Dark Knight or Under the Red Hood but it's still good.
The movie starts when the Joker and the Penguin escaping from Arkham Asylum. They are both after a treasure stored in the Gotham Cemetery. Joker is chased by Batman while the Penguin looks for the treasure. During the fight with Batman, Joker meets his demise when falling into Gotham Harbor. Since his joy buzzer was activated it shocked him to death. This is when you realize that this is much more darker then the show was. Meanwhile the Penguin finds a coffin, and accidentally cuts his hand. Some blood goes into the corpse's heart resurrecting it.
Penguin get's hypnotized by Dracula, becoming the "Renfield" of this movie. Batman must stop Dracula, and find a way to save the people who Dracula turned into vampires. The movies is good, it has a great atmosphere to it. It shows how dark this show could have been, especially the scenes with Vampire Joker at the Blood Bank. It also has some allusions to Frank Miller's Batman Year One, with scenes like the Bat crashing through the window and the SWAT team chasing Batman through an abandoned warehouse.
With Bat's being a main focus of this story, Batman is blamed for Dracula's kidnappings. This mixed with the guilt for letting the Joker die, and the life he's trying to have with Vicki Vale is a testament to his sense of justice when any normal person would just quit. Speaking of the Joker, of course it's revealed he isn't really dead. But it does raise the question of how did he survive? I mean he's done this before like in Batman the Animated Series but he was shocked, and sinking in a harbor. Apparently he was caught in a fisherman's net, dude must have some good luck.
I did have a few problems though even if they are nitpicks. First why where Dracula's remains taken to Gotham. I mean, if they really wanted to get rid of him why didn't the just throw the heavy coffin into the ocean. Also why is one bite all it take to turn into a vampire? In order to turn into a vampire in the novel Dracula you must be drained of all blood, and die. Then you become a vampire. Also Wayne Enterprises is conveniently developing a Solar Generator when a vampire outbreak occurs.
However the biggest problem I have is the Penguin. Not the Penguin himself I like the Penguin as a villain. It's just the Penguin in this show is uninteresting, and speaks in mostly bad puns. For example Dracula is watching Vicki Vale on TV when Penguin says "Nice jugulars!"
Despite that the movie is pretty good. I recommend it if your interested. So get some candy, watch a couple of Monster movies and have a Happy Halloween!
Rating: 4/5
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