Vampire films, by their very nature, skirt a thin line between stylish and cheesy, hokey and horrific.

Dracula 2000 is both hokey and cheesy. Except for a touch of gravitas by Christopher Plummer as the ageless Van Helsing and a swift chuckle earned by Danny Masterson as vamp fodder, there is very little else to say about it.

It's a shame, too, because the movie started well and had a few good ideas (courtesy of director Patrick Lussier and his co-screenwriter, Joel Soisson) to work with, but it mashed it all up in a movie with little direction, sense or style. The acting (Plummer aside) deserves little comment, and the plot -- aside from a strange new origin story for Dracula and a clever twist with leeches -- has nothing new to offer. It seems only Gerard Butler's drooling fans have anything positive to say about this movie, but I found his Dracula a little pallid.

Oh, and when the audience is told quite clearly that a vampire is impossible to kill, we expect it to be a little harder to kill him.