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Bram Stoker's Dracula: Superbit Edition
Movie: 8/10
This is one of the better adaptations of Stoker's classic horror novel. Francis Ford Coppola brought us this style embodied flick with an all-star cast back in the early nineties and it still hasn't lost it's touch to chill as well as bring us a decent gothic romance. Count Dracula (Gary Oldman) is a Turkish soldier of God during the Crusades. He returns from battle triumphant only to find that his misinformed lover (Winona Ryder) has killed herself thinking that Dracula died during battle. The Count curses God for taking his lover when he defended the cross and makes a pact with the devil to be with his love again, turning him into a blood craving vampire. We flash forward to 1800's London as Jonathan Harker (Keanu Reeves), covering for the psychotic Mr. Renfield (Tom Waits), is sent to Transylvania to sell an estate to the Count. Dracula catches a glimpse of Harker's wife, Mina (Winona Ryder again) who cues memories of his departed wife. Dracula imprisons Harker and heads to London to find Mina. Upon his escape, Harker recruits Quincey Morris, John Seward, Lord Godalming, and the vampire hunter Professor Van Helsing (Anthony Hopkins) to track down the beast and end it's trail of horror. The film looks good and the plot only suffers a few dead ends. It's still the most faithful adaptation of Stoker's book that I have ever seen.
Video: 10/10
Columbia is a company that puts out some excellent looking DVDs. From The Fifth Element to their Superbit collection, which Dracula is a member of, you rarely see video this clean, especially in a decade old film like Dracula. Anamorphic widescreen is all you'll find here.
Audio: 10/10
The other benchmark Columbia is known for is their audio tracks. The Superbits hold DTS and Dolby 5.1 tracks that sound beautiful and fully immerse you in the film's universe. Nice job.
Extras: 0/10
Unfortunately, Superbit DVDs come with no extras because the advanced bitrate of the disc's audio and video fill up the disc. This is unfortunate and really holds this disc back.
Overall: 7/10
A great adaptation of Stoker's novel that Columbia has given a great video and audio track to. No extras though. I mean, they are nice to have, but when VHS was king you never heard of a lot of extras included on tapes. DVD is quality, not always extras and that is what you get here.
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