Dracula III: Legacy starts immediately where Dracula II: Ascension left off, with Dracula and his new 'bride' Elizabeth (Diane Neal) fleeing the USA, Luke (Jason London) and Father Uffizi (Jason Scott Lee) in hot pursuit, their journey taking them to Romania for a final confrontation with the legendary vamp (now played by Rutger Hauer) in his castle lair.
Filmed back-to-back with part II of the Craven/Lussier series, this chapter is naturally very similar in style and tone, a slick, contemporary blend of action, gore, and humour. Luke and Uffizi's Romanian road-trip is perhaps not as loaded with vamp action as I would have liked (they seem to have just as many problems with the local humans as they do with bloodsuckers), and its a long while before we get to see Hauer as Drac, but there is enough fun throughout to make this a satisfying end to the series.
The pairing of Lee and London works particularly well, the latter ably playing comedy sidekick to Lee's bad-ass priest/vampire killer with a troubled soul, and some welcome girl-power comes in the form of Alexandra Wescourt, who plays feisty news reporter Julia Hughes. Rutger Hauer is always cool in my book (and he has previous experience at playing a vampire), but as much as I enjoyed his performance, he does look a bit too 'weathered' here to be playing Dracula (what's with the messy stubble?), especially considering that Stephen Billington and Gerard Butler played the character in the earlier films.
For me, the best thing about the film is the gore, which includes a juicy 'spear in the eye' gag, a macabre display of impaled priests, a bit of face melting with holy water, Father Uffizi whipping off heads and limbs right, left and centre, and in my favourite moment—an attack by a pair of creepy circus vampires—the cutting in half of a female acrobat and the ingenious staking of a clown on stilts.
6.5 out of 10 (rounded up to 7 for the cool ending, which I won't spoil by describing here).
