In 1442, by order of the sultan, the Turkish army enslaved and conscripted 1,000 boys from Transylvania. (Why all the underage soldiers? That’s nobody’s business but the Turks’.) Out of that group, the prologue of Dracula Untold tells, one emerged as a “warrior so fierce”: Vlad the Impaler, not yet known as Dracula, not yet a vampire.

In fact, returning to Transylvania as a prince of peace, Vlad (Luke Evans, Fast & Furious 6) is a family man with a wife (Sarah Gadon, Antiviral) and towheaded tot (Art Parkinson, TV’s Game of Thrones). That sweet life comes under threat when Turkish warlord Mehmed (Dominic Cooper, Captain America: The Winter Soldier) comes calling to revive that old “recruitment” process of 1,000 boys, Vlad’s included.

What’s a dad like Vlad to? Kick Mehmet’s ass. How? By climbing Broken Tooth Mountain, atop which a vampire (an eerie Charles Dance, Alien 3) lives, ready to imbue Vlad with a shortlist of superpowers:
1. the strength of 100 men,
2. the speed of a falling star,
3. dominion o’er the night and all its creatures,
4. and good ol’ immortality.

The downside? Just an unquenchable thirst for human blood. Vlad decides to submit to vampirism anyway. Oh, shit, sorry: Spoiler alert.

With his deep-red cape and symmetrical-patterned coat of armor, Vlad 2.0 looks and acts very much like a comic-book hero; ergo, Dracula Untold is his origin story — his birth on Krypton, his bite from a radioactive spider. Here, Vlad is rendered the original “bat man,” morphing his body into a belfry’s worth of bats to leap from one point to another in a fraction of the time. This provides him an upper hand on the battlefield, and us with an admittedly cool effect, surpassed only by an ashes-ashes-all-fall-down finale. Having infected blood proves so advantageous in war that Vlad passes it out to his fellow fighters like frat boys discovering Red Bull (“It’s got wings, bro! Wings!”).

Freshman director Gary Shore does an admirable job of shoehorning plenty of atmosphere into what is first and foremost an FX extravaganza. More commendable, newbie screenwriters Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless bring a comparatively fresh take on Bram Stoker’s oft-filmed creation. Dracula Untold truly is unlike any other Dracula movie before it because it could get away with dropping the famous name altogether — but what would be the marquee value in that?

With almost all trappings of horror scraped away, the film is an action-laden, sword-slinging fantasy: a fanged 300. It’s also Universal Pictures’ initial step in rebooting its classic monsters for a shared-universe franchise to follow the mighty Marvel template of moneymaking moviemaking. While not so good as to be great — Evans’ flowing locks are more noticeable than his performance — it’s a solid start. —Rod Lott

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Hypothetical question: It’s the year 1996, and alien beings, cleverly disguised as humans, are destroying the earth for their own selfish needs. Who you gonna call? No, not Rowdy Roddy Piper; he sacrificed himself a few years back (that’s a They Live reference, BTW). Also, 1996 Will Smith is busy saving the world from other alien overlords (Independence Day), and 1996 Jack Nicholson has his hands full with yet another xenomorphic conflict (Mars Attacks!).

Who else you got? If you’ve guessed “Pudgy Charlie Sheen” … congratulations?

The Arrival, the third alien invasion movie of 1996, made little impact upon its release. It wielded neither the star wattage nor big budget of its higher-profile kin, and its special effects are best described as “eh, pretty good, all things considered.” But, much like spiritual soulmate They Live, its subtext makes it increasingly relevant, even if it’s too long and has all the visual élan of an episode of T.J. Hooker.

David Twohy (the Riddick trilogy) was a neophyte director here, and it shows; his lackluster pacing drags The Arrival out way longer than it needs to be. His writing is stronger, full of smart people sounding smart while doing smart things (and a few dumb things, because tension), and by layering in themes of climate change and environmental devastation, he (like John Carpenter with — again — They Live) transforms a slight B movie into something more topical and thought-provoking.

Sadly, most of the actors can barely muster interest, with only the passionate climatologist played by Lindsay Crouse (House of Games) making a true impression (so, obviously, she dies). Ron Silver (Timecop) is comatose as the baddie, Teri Polo (the Meet the Parents trilogy) is blandness personified as Girlfriend Character, and Sheen only rouses at the finale as his put-upon astronomer becomes more and more unhinged.

Sheen is also leagues away from the ripped and shredded physique he showed off in Hot Shots! Part Deux, which actually works in the movie’s favor. Be honest: Aren’t we all tired of movie scientists who also resemble GQ catalog models? Sheen’s corporeal puffiness adds a level of verisimilitude to The Arrival that his sleepy performance sadly cannot match. —Corey Redekop

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Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem begins where 2004’s Alien vs. Predator left off: with the miracle of birth! To be precise, an Alien-style chestburster rises from the womb-like corpse of a Predator — behold, the PredAlien! (Seriously, that’s what 20th Century Fox calls it.) This milestone occurs in space, aboard a Predator ship (PredShip?), which the newborn causes to crash-land on Earth, thereby loosing the Predators’ jarred collection of live Alien facehuggers on the quaint, quiet town of Gunnison, Colo.

Following the spacecraft’s distress signal to our planet is a clean-up Predator (Ian Whyte, The Scorpion King 4: Quest for Power) whose figurative job is to mop up the mess left behind using explosives and a beaker of blue acid. He makes that damned clicking sound while going about his business. Skirmishes occur amid the great outdoors, but also in the town’s sewer system, nuclear power plant, high school pool and hospital — woe be to the visibly already-pregnant woman who gets mouth-raped by the PredAlien.

VFX wunderkinds Colin and Greg Strause (Skyline) spend the first act of their feature-directing debut setting up members of their expendable human cast — an ex-con, a pizza delivery boy, an Iraq War vet, the customary cop and so on — and the next two acts knockin’ ’em down. To my surprise, they do a much better job establishing those earlier stages than in dishing out Requiem’s supposed meat. That the characters are introduced with so little personality should tell all about the degree to which the brothers’ film disappoints, especially in the only area in which their target audience gives a damn. They’re no Paul W.S. Anderson.

Requiem might be a fanboy’s dream if we could see the sequences that justify the “vs.” portion of the title. For whatever reason — perhaps to mask some digital seams? — these scenes appear unforgivably dark on disc just as they did in theaters; they’re even trickier for the eye to decipher than the movie’s “what is that?” one-sheet. The Strauses work from a through-the-motions script by Shane Salerno (2000’s Shaft remake), whose coda sets up a never-made third film. Neither Anderson’s original nor the Strauses’ sequel were able to meet the inherent potential of this spin-off franchise, but the Strause boys really squandered it. —Rod Lott

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In 2012 A.D., a plague-ravaged New York City carries the stench of The Omega Man all over it — but in a matte-painting/studio-backlot way — in The Ultimate Warrior. Newsflash: The future is dull and boring, so file this speculative-fiction snoozer under “sigh-fi.”

While cannibalistic street people lurk about, the dozens of survivors form a makeshift community within a city block junk-walled for reinforcement. Under the kindly watch of Baron (Max von Sydow, Flash Gordon), their ersatz mayor, the grime-faced men and women sustain themselves on vegetables grown on a rooftop garden and rations of tinned meat and powdered milk.

The film’s title refers to Carson (Yul Brynner, The Magnificent Seven), a bare-chested and high-waisted fighter invited by Baron to join their quaint neighborhood. Lured not by the offer of extra portions at mealtime, but by the promise of “cee-gars” to get his smoke on, Carson agrees. That’s good, because every post-apocalyptic compound needs an ass-kicker in its employ, particularly with the ever-present threat posed by the ginger-haired giant Carrot (William Smith, 1982’s Conan the Barbarian). Blood is shed, in the color and consistency of Campbell’s Condensed Tomato Soup.

Eventually, Baron sends Carson on an Important Mission, but don’t get your hopes up. That portion — seemingly an afterthought — is even less interesting than everything before it. Then pushing age 55, Brynner is hardly the end-all-be-all tuffie promised — hell, he’s a fraction of the imposing figure he cut just two years earlier as Westworld‘s robo-cowboy — and that alone renders the very premise obsolete. The same could be said of its writer/director, Robert Clouse, continuing his long, slow slide from the (accidental?) heights of the 1973’s kung-fu classic Enter the Dragon to the dregs of DTV action. —Rod Lott

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Never seen a John Carpenter film? Haven’t found the time for Mad Max? 28 Days Later looks too scary? Well, has Neil Marshall got a deal for you! All these films, plus many, many more, all mashed into one easily digestible package! How can you lose? Order now and you’ll also receive a set of steak knives at no cost to you!

Doomsday certainly wears its influences with pride. An intentionally ridiculous amalgam of almost every high-octane B movie of the past hundred years or so, it’s not so much a coherent vision of a dystopian future as it is a “best of (fill in genre of your choice here)” YouTube video. However, considering the oeuvre of writer/director Neil Marshall (Dog Soldiers), it is well-directed ridiculous mayhem, which is pretty much a summation of any classic B movie anyway.

Beginning as a 28 Days-type thriller, Doomsday rapidly shifts into Escape from New York gear, as major asskicker Maj. Sinclair (Underworld: Rise of the Lycans’ Rhona Mitra, frequently eyepatched à la Snake Plissken) is sent into the virus-scorched wasteland of Scotland to search for a possible cure before London tears itself apart. There, she encounters both Road Warrior-type cannibals and an Arthurian feudal system of government ruled by insane scientist Malcolm McDowell (A Clockwork Orange), because who else?

Also, Bob Hoskins (Who Framed Roger Rabbit) is hanging around for some reason, and soldier Adrian Lester (Primary Colors) plays heroic second fiddle in what will now and forever be referred to as “the Michael Biehn role.” So, yeah, he dies.

And then there’s a car chase that leaves me exhausted and hungry for more. When is Mad Max: Fury Road coming out again?

Again, it’s all nonsense (and frankly not up to the rest of Marshall’s output, including The Descent, although his talent for gore remains intact), but goddamned if it isn’t fun nonsense, even if half the time you’re playing the “what’s being referenced now?” game. And Mitra’s qualities as kicker of ass should be much more in demand. In a genre saturated with bone-thin heroines who appear too frail to lift a sandwich (let alone a gun), her musculature is a rare thing indeed. She might not be a physical match for Haywire’s Gina Carano, but I’d put her up against the likes of Kate Beckinsale, Angelina Jolie, and Zoe Saldana any day. I leave it to you to daydream about that. —Corey Redekop

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