Bram Stoker’s Dracula is a classic R rated 1992 horror movie that had a budget of $40 million dollars and box office sells of $215.9 million dollars (this is a fictional movie). A very successful movie that was released on the 4K Blu-ray format on 10-4-2022. The reason this movie is rated R is for some bloody horror violence, and also some nudity with sexual situations. This happens to be one of my favorite all time Dracula movies so far, but I have most likely only seen around 70% of the Dracula movies in existence. A family member I know also likes this Dracula movie. Francies Ford Coppola is one of my all-time favorite directors. One of these days, hopefully this year or maybe next year I plan on watching the Godfather trilogy on 4K Blu-ray that is still sitting on my shelf. While Dracula is a masterpiece of fine art in the horror genre, The Godfather trilogy is also a masterpiece in the mob crime genre. I do not own and have not seen Apocalypse Now for many decades, but that was another classic movie.
Many modern day 21st century vampire movies have removed religion and Christianity from the storyline and instead have made vampires both good and bad and more secular with crucifixes, holy water, and Christianity having no authority over vampires (and some of those modern vampire movies are enjoyable to watch since they set their own rules in the vampire genre). What is neat about Bram Stoker’s Dracula is that it is an old fashion Dracula movie where Christianity has authority over the satanic Dracula and vampire creatures, with items like crosses and other holy items at least slowing the vampires down a little. While Dracula is a good guy at first, that changes after his wife commits suicide and the leaders of the church make the claim that she will now spend eternity in hell (A priest tells Dracula his wife’s soul is damned to hell for eternity). Therefore, the Christian crusader Dracula gets upset and desecrates the chapel and renounces God in the fictional movie. The fictional movie is historically accurate in the fact that for many centuries the Catholic church has claimed that all suicides go to hell and would refuse funeral services for those that committed suicide (This was still the policy of the Catholic church up until the late 20th Century from various online sources). However, some modern-day Protestant Christians believe that if the person was insane like on mind altering drugs or abusing alcohol and they did not realize what they were doing then maybe around 1% of suicides will make it to heaven. Of course, in modern times there is many people that doubt the existence of God and the afterlife. However, this fictional Dracula movie is for everyone regardless of what one believes about religion and Christianity.
This 4K Blu-ray disc version was released on October 4th 2022 with native 4K in Dolby Vision HDR with lossless 13.1 Dolby Atmos. A total of 82.5GB of space is used out of 100GB on the triple layer 4K Blu-ray disc. A total of 45.3GB of space is used out of 50GB on the dual layer Blu-ray disc. What is disappointing about this release is that only some of the bonus features are placed on the 4K Blu-ray disc, when in fact there was plenty of room for more extra features. At the very minimum the two audio commentary tracks should have been placed on the native 4K Blu-ray disc instead of having to play them in 2K (1080P) in the standard Blu-ray disc. The two extras on the 4K Blu-ray disc are native HEVC at 1080P at 60Hz (but they appear to be upscaled from possible a SD source). 100% of the bonus features on the standard Blu-ray disc uses the MPEG-4/AVC codec with mainly 1080P and sometimes 1080i depending on which bonus feature is being played. On my year 2016 OPPO UDP-203 4K Blu-ray player the triple layer BD-100 disc played back perfectly fine with no problems even while doing several reverse scans (flawless playback). Because of limitations with my display and A/V receiver the native 4K movie was downscaled to 1080P and the lossless 13.1 Dolby Atmos was downscaled to 7.1 Dolby TrueHD core audio. While all HDR to SDR conversion occurs with HDR10 instead of Dolby Vision HDR, I did notice that around 13 minutes into the movie the lantern that Dracula was holding had a greater dynamic range in brightness with high bit rate HEVC 4K Blu-ray being converted from HDR10 to SDR with my OPPO UDP-203. When compared to the enclosed standard Blu-ray, the lantern scene on the 4K Blu-ray with the flickering light was much more enjoyable even though I do not own a HDR capable display yet. Just my 4K Blu-ray player has excellent HDR10 to SDR conversion when using the native 36 bit deep color on the old 2008 Pioneer Elite Signature series plasma. Hooking the OPPO UDP-203 up to my native year 2015 4K LG computer monitor that has HDCP 2.2 does not look as good in native 4K when compared to the Pioneer plasma which has deeper blacks, better colors, and overall better picture at 1080P. One of these years I might get a Dolby Vision HDR projector when they actually start making one. Yes I realize a high-end 4K OLED with Dolby Vision HDR will offer a better picture then the year 2008 Pioneer plasma. But I am looking at a 8K projector or 8K OLED in the year 2026+ before I actually do a upgrade on the video side (since I got busy and did not upgrade to 4K in 2016 to 2018 time period).
The two separate audio commentary tracks by Francies Ford Coppola were outstanding and encoded with Dolby Prologic matrix flag for those that own a surround sound A/V receiver. The main reason these audio commentary tracks were outstanding, was because of the very interesting information that they contained. One learns that the movie used no computer-generated CGI with green and blue screen and this Bram Stoker’s Dracula was shot using optical and other old fashion filming techniques. Also, the actors that agreed to do the nude scenes with sexual situations were under a contract to do so. Some people get shy during these scenes while other actors are not ashamed of their body when it comes to nudity. Both audio commentary tracks briefly talk about Dracula's blood disease that turns humans into vampires. It is mentioned in both audio commentaries that some people in the 90's were thinking about modern day blood diseases like HIV and AIDS when trying to come up with a fictional blood disease that Dracula gives human beings. Overall, this is a classic Dracula movie that has the struggle of good versus evil, with Dracula and the vampires being the completely evil satanic creatures that are rebelling against Christianity. Again, this is one of my favorite Dracula movies with excellent music, storyline, and overall classic camera techniques without the need for computer graphics technology. At times some people feel sorry for the fictional Dracula character, even though in the end he pays for his crimes he has committed against humanity over the centuries.
https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Bram-...lu-ray/319180/
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