Movie Review: The Batman vs. Dracula (2005)

I think this might be the only year we’ve had two animated features within the Month of Spooks. First “Resident Evil: Death Island” last week and now a feature about two winged rats. So that’s fun, I guess.

Ladies, gents, and non-binaries… “The Batman vs. Dracula”.

On a cold Gotham night, a recently escaped Penguin (Tom Kenny) finds himself accidentally bringing the one and only Dracula (Peter Stormare) back to life… unlife… undeath? The vampire then begins wreaking havoc on the citizens of Gotham, and it’s up to the Caped Crusader (Rino Romano) to find a way to stop him. The plot here is fine, a perfectly passable story of a hero battling a classic monster. I will give it some credit for going considerably darker and leaning more on horror tropes than I anticipated. Now, this movie builds on from a cartoon that was running at the time, and from the little I’ve seen, that show did have some darkness to it. But this movie wasn’t afraid of really going horror dark, or as far into horror dark as they dared while still trying to have it be family friendly. So while I do appreciate it having that added edge, it otherwise doesn’t do much special/standout. Narratively it generally feels like an extended episode of an alright cartoon, but with a *slight* horror edge.

The characters here are enjoyable, giving us some fun spins on classic “Batman” characters, along with giving us a fairly classic, solid rendition of the prince of darkness. Voice cast is great too, Rino Romano does a really good Batman, Tom Kenny’s a fun Penguin, Tara Strong is good as Vicky Vale… but the standout here is of course Peter Stormare (one of the best actors of my home country) as Dracula. He’s so creepy and plays the character with a charismatic intensity that made me hang onto every word he spoke. He’s stellar. Entire cast is good, but he is just… wow.

The score for the movie was composed by Thomas Chase and I thought it was rad as hell. It blends a broody guitar with some hero brass and high pitched, gothic strings to create a series of tracks that create such a fun, unique atmosphere that marvelously blends horror, superheroes, and the inner turmoil of Brucey. It’s wonderful.

Tying into the 2004 cartoon series “The Batman”, based on the DC Comics character created by Bill Finger (and also a Bob Kane, kind of), “Batman vs. Dracula” was directed by Michael Goguen. And I think the direction here is pretty good. The animation itself is pretty good, it has an art style which is hit or miss for me, depending on the character. But otherwise the animation flows nicely, especially in the action scenes. But what I appreciate most is that there’s some really fun horror-inspired imagery going on through this, using shadows, silhouettes, and various intense colors to really lean on the spookiness of Dracula coming into the eternal hellscape that is Gotham City. It makes it pop and allows the filmmakers to have a bit of extra fun.

This movie’s gotten some mixed reception. On Rotten Tomatoes it has an audience rating of 66%. And on imdb.com it has a score of 6.6/10.

While it’s not one of my favorite bits of DC animation, I still found “The Batman vs. Dracula” to be a pretty fun little spooky adventure for the Dark Knight. It has an okay story, pretty fun characters, great performances, great music, and solid directing/animation. Time for my final score. *nananananananana*. My final score for “The Batman vs. Dracula” is a 6.77/10. So it’s worth a rental.

My review of “The Batman vs. Dracula” is completed.

I’ve honestly intended to have this for Month of Spooks for a few years, so it’s nice to finally have it cleared.