Dracula Untold

(2014) ★

Sky Movies Premiere : PREMIERE Friday 17 July, 4.30pm and 8pm

Apparently it was all the fault of the Turks. Marauding Europe in the 15th century, the sultan’s army enslaved children, turning them into boy soldiers. The most notorious later became Transylvanian prince Vlad the Impaler (Luke Evans), ruling his kingdom with a benevolence entirely at odds with his old warrior nickname. This noble Vlad’s a peace-loving, God-fearing family man. It’s the Turks who come crashing back into his life who force Vlad back into bad old ways. When, solely to vanquish the Turks, he makes his sacrificial deal with Carpathian cave-dwelling vampire Charles Dance, you get the impression Vlad hasn’t really thought this through. And so it proves. Unlike the great screen Draculas – Max Schreck, Christopher Lee, Gary Oldman – this one’s a batty superhero sworn to protect the innocent (but mainly his young son). Harking back to the bad-old-days of Van Helsing, this is achieved with unholy swarms of CGI. Like the wag once said about Hercules Unchained (“Should never have been released!”), perhaps this vapid vampire yarn should have remained a closed book. It’s a horror show, just not in the way its makers intended. The best that can be said in its defence is that it’s not as godawful as I, Frankenstein.

Certificate: 15

Duration: 92min