Dracula II: Ascension
How do you make a sequel to a movie where the main character dies in the first film? The makers of Dracula II did it by not making a sequal at all.

Dracula 2000 was a reworking of the Dracula story for a modern setting, much like Baz Luhrman's Romeo and Juliet took the Shakespearean story and set it in modern times. Dracula II is a poor vampire story that has been shoehorned into being a sequal to another vampire movie. It doesn't matter if the vampire in the story is Dracula or not. The only narrative tie to the first film is a glimpse of the end of D2000 where Dracula is hung from a neon cross on the side of a building and left to burn in the sunlight. That and a smidgeon of expository dialogue are the ties to the first film.

Much like Vampires Los Muertos the only thing that seems to link the producer, this time Wes Craven, to the film is the name above the credits. I wouldn't be surprised if this film was already completed before they added the Dracula element to it, since the vampire really looks nothing like Dracula from Dracula 2000 at all. He looks more like an albino Billy Idol.

What's bad about this film you ask?

1. The writing.
2. The action
3. The direction
4. Craig Sheffer playing the crippled Proffesor Lowell by just curling up one arm and speaking deeper and slower than he normaly does.
5. oh, the writing.

There's more bad stuff here, but I'm not really paying that much attention to it anymore.

If all that's bad, what's good then you say? Well, Jason Scott Lee's Vamire Killing Priest Uffizi is pretty good. most of the scenes involving him are nice and tension filled, but they are few and far between. If the film had been more about him and his quest and less about the badly written greedy little medical students and their greedy teacher, then it might have worked.

I also think that the movie would be much better had the part of Uffizi been played by Jason Lee of the Jersey Films fame. Then with Jeremy London playing his part it would have had both T.S. Quint and Banky from Mallrats in this film.

The reviewer on IMDB that said this movie is much better than Dracula 2000 is full of crap. This movie is much worse, and it doesn't even have a brief glimpse of a topless Vitamin C to add some interest.

I also see that there is a sequel planned, why?

This film fails.