Alright, fucking ENOUGH. There are great vampire movies, already. I swear to you. Here is a sampling, you broad-foreheaded, mouth-breathing, movie-viewing public: Dracula (yes, the original, in black and white), Nosferatu (legitimately creepy, despite the fact that he doesn't know parkour), Werner Herzog's Nosferatu, the Vampyre (because it's Herzog, and fuck you if you're not into that), and even the most recent-and, likely, the last legitimate take on the vampire mythology - Shadow of the Vampire (starring two actual crazy people, Willem Dafoe and John Malkovich). This is not to mention the stunning Let the Right One In, which you should just go and watch before reading the rest of this.

As much as the well has seemingly run dry on modern takes on vampires, here we're met with another grim specter: Dracula Untold, which has the bad timing necessary to have a title reminiscent of The Unauthorized Saved By the Bell Story.

To start with, Dracula Untold's trailer has the gall to winkingly reference the Universal Horror era of monsters, with a black and white Universal logo. Much like the gritty King Arthur of several years ago, this film seems to imply that we're going to be getting the raw, uncut version of the titular character's origin. Dracula Untold seems to be dripping with a smug attitude that almost shouts something like, "See! No teenagers or glitter to be found in this vampire movie! It's just what you've wanted!"

Instead of getting back to basics, Dracula Untold manages to complicate Dracula's myth even more, granting him the power to make giant fists out of bats (?), while seeming to ignore most of the blood-sucking aspects that we've come to know and love about Drac. Thankfully, the film seems to take place in an age before hoodies, unlike the risible I, Frankenstein that dropped earlier this year. Granted, I'd sooner believe a vampire in a hoodie than a monster made of various dead body parts, but that's a conversation for another time: never.