If you’re a fan of the hit show Lucifer, you may find yourself watching and wondering whether the new Dracula on Netflix is just a cheap knockoff.
Dracula debuted last month on both the BBC and Netflix.
Danish actor and musician, Claes Bang, plays the lead role.
You get the sense he sat and watched four seasons of Tom Ellis as Lucifer before he filmed the first episode.
Bang transforms the evil Dracula into a quippy, campy comic book villain who is remarkably fast with a one-liner for having only learned English a few weeks previous, and who somehow percolated a Cockney accent despite being from Transylvania.
The problem is, no one plays that type of role better than Ellis, who has mastered it.
British critics loved seeing Dracula as an “outrageous diva tart” said the Times, but all that second-rate snark robbed the vampire of his otherworldly power.
Problem is, it just doesn’t work.
“Couldn’t help but think the portrayal of Dracula by Claes Bang is very similar to Tom Ellis as Lucifer, but not as good,” wrote PirateDog92 on Reddit. “At first I thought it was just the accent but then he starts to come out with things that are very Lucifer-esque!”
“I watched the first episode tonight and thought the same,” responded Wizabuth.
“I’ve watched it all so it’s safe to say that he certainly looks and acts like Tom Ellis,” added iiShadoww54.
“Just saw the first episode, and that’s exactly what came to my mind,” wrote abassi0.
“I thought exactly the same. I’ve never watched a Dracula movie before though so now I’m wondering if all this time was Tom acting like previous Dracula actors?” wondered Veovi.
Bang, 52, is from Odense, Denmark.
He trained in acting at Denmark’s National Theatre School, and when he’s not acting, he’s making music under the name This Is Not America.
He’s not a terrible actor.
He just isn’t Tom Ellis.
There have been campy Dracula’s before, but not during the Lucifer era, and certainly not on the same streaming service.
“Bang’s Dracula is less Prince of Darkness than the Clown Prince of Crime, sharing more than a little characterization with Mark Hamill’s cartoon Joker,” wrote critic Jason Colavito. “Dracula works best as a largely unseen menace, and making him the main character transforms his power into something of a cartoon.”
The bottom line in our opinion: Dracula is no Lucifer!
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