‘Men do not fear swords. They fear monsters… Sometimes the world no longer needs a hero. Sometimes what it needs is a monster.’ Thus uttered Vlad the Impaler, explaining his rationale for having used impalement of one village, with thousands put to the stake, to spare 10 more villages – by striking fear, to spur auto-retreat and surrender.
A hallmark of a mature story is that it paints no picture of absolute good versus absolute evil, since neither exists. In this retelling of the fictitious Dracula’s origin as the ‘historical’ Vlad, before he became the notorous vampire, he did become repentant of his mass murder at war. The audience is left to wonder if his wrath was an necessary evil for the sake of peace, if it was really compassion for more.
Even his turning into Dracula was reluctant, a last resort. If so, perhaps, all other monsters too are maligned, misunderstood by the very ones they could be trying to protect? If there is no totally villainous monster, the true monster would be demonsation of the innocent, or those more innocent than assumed! With the ability to become a flock of bats and to summon colonies of them, this ‘Dracula Untold’ is perhaps the original ‘Batman’!