Cover Art

Credits

Director: Michael Almereyda Starring: Elina Lowensohn Screenplay: Michael Almereyda Music: Simon Fisher-Turner Tagline: Unseen. Unforgiving. Undead. Country: USA

Hal Hartley regular Elina Lowensohn plays the title character, daughter of none other than the recently-deceased Count Dracula, who has travelled to New York to put his affairs in order. At the same time she has to deal with her dysfunctional relationship with her brother (and fellow vamp) Edgar (Jared Harris). Then there's the matter of the man who killed their father, an obsessive, long-haired oddball named – you guessed it – Dr. Van Helsing (Peter Fonda, who also plays Dracula) and his straight-arrow nephew Jim (Martin Donovan, another part of Hartley's rep company). And Jim's sexually conflicted wife Lucy (Galaxy Craze) seems to be acting awfully strange following a night time encounter with Nadja…

Shot in inky black and white, on a variety of different film stocks (even a toy video camera!) this is a visually dazzling experience. Luckily, the script is as inventive as the imagery, with wit and cleverness to spare. Almereyda throws in nods to earlier vampire classics (including some footage of Bela Lugosi as Dracula) and references other films such as Eraserhead. As it happens, that film's director, David Lynch (who executive produced) has an amusing cameo as a hapless morgue attendant. The dynamic of the characters resembles a typically 90's dysfunctional family film, which is a clever touch amid the genre trappings. Almereyda's casting of 90's indie regulars Lowensohn, Donavan and Harris also works well, but it is Peter Fonda's brilliant and hilarious turn as a hippie-ish Van Helsing that steals the show.