/Film Showdown: Dracula 2000's Dracula Vs. Seth Gecko
Imaginary crossovers have long been a great geeky go-to conversation starter, from the very first nerds who ever asked "who would win in a fight, Wolverine or Superman?" In that spirit, we have created the /Film Showdown, pitting two titans of terror from all of horror cinema against one another. Leatherface from "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" has faced off against Pinhead from "Hellraiser," Pennywise the dancing clown from "It" has gone a round with Freddy Krueger, and now, it's time for a charismatic vampire hunter and one of cinema's most loathed vampires to do battle. That's right, Seth Gecko (played by George Clooney) from the Quentin Tarantino-penned and Robert Rodriguez-helmed "From Dusk Til Dawn" is going to try to take down the version of Dracula played by Gerard Butler in the widely reviled "Dracula 2000." Both wear black leather and have great hair, but only one of them can walk away.
So who will it be? Can the cataclysmically corny Daddy of the Damned manage to out-fight the suave and smooth-talking slayer of blood-suckers? Or is Dracula doomed to face defeat like his movie did at the box office?
Two good-looking guys enter; only one will leave. Let's go.
How they could crossover
There are sequels to both "Dracula 2000" and "From Dusk Til Dawn," but for the sake of keeping things less confusing, this battle royale would take place in a world where the sequels don't exist, and the endings of the original movies dictate the canon. Cool? Cool.
In "Dracula 2000," a young woman named Mary Heller (played by Justine Waddell) discovers that her father was the last guardian of the tomb of Dracula. After he's awakened from his eternal slumber by some rogue treasure hunters, Dracula goes looking for Mary in order to exact revenge on her father while also sort of having a crush on her, but she's not really down with the whole "drinking the blood of mortals" thing and fights against him. In the end, he reveals himself to be Judas Iscariot, the betrayer of Christ in the Bible, which explains why he hates crosses and other Christian imagery so much. It's really silly, but what's even sillier is that in the ensuing battle, most of Mary's friends die, Dracula's vampire servants die, and then Dracula ends up being hanged almost by accident right as the sun comes up, relegating him to dust. Great job, everyone!
Mary decides that she must take up the charge of guarding Dracula's ashes so that he can never find a way to return, and seemingly that's that. A lifetime spent guarding ashes could get pretty tiresome, and one can imagine that Mary might want a little rest and relaxation after her whole "saving the world" ordeal. Maybe she decided to go take a vacation down in Mexico and brought the urn along with her since she can't let it out of her sight. And maybe, while she was down there, her luggage got mixed up, and 'ole Drac manages to resurrect himself.
Guess who happens to be down in Mexico, trying to relax a little while on the run after the events of "From Dusk Til Dawn"? That's right, one ex-con-turned-vampire-killer named Seth Gecko.
A vacation turned violent
All due respect to one Mr. Dracula, particularly the version from "Dracula 2000" played by an impossibly handsome Gerard Butler with all that hair, but what is going to happen when that well-manicured vampire rolls up on Seth f*****g Gecko after he has killed dozens of vampires in one of the most messed up situations imaginable? It's probably not going to be pretty. Not one bit.
First off, this is not some random guy who will inevitably be coming face to face with a vampire. It is a man who faced down more of these beasts than any one man should be able to handle in a situation where there was truly no escape. Yet, he learned the ins and outs of how to handle these bloodsucking beings through trial and error. Now? Seth is a hardened and bonafide vampire killer with a bone to pick. Let's not forget that they killed his brother, one of the only people in the world he actually cared about. So yeah, Dracula seems like a good guy to pick that bone with.
Aside from that, we need to remember that Seth was a hard-nosed criminal long before his days of hunting vampires. He only went to Mexico to escape the law in the first place as he and his brother were on the run for a series of robberies and murders. Learning how to kill vampires was just the latest on a long list of grizzly, unsightly accomplishments.
Lastly, Seth knows people, and is well connected in the criminal underworld. You think he's going up against pretty boy Dracula alone? Not a chance. The second he figures out that bloodsucker is over the border, he's gathering up some fellow scumbags to make sure this is done right. Butler's Dracula may be stronger than the soft-fleshed vampires Seth battled before, but come on, after everything he went through at the Titty Twister? It's game over, man.
How do you like your stake?
It's pretty clear that while Dracula might be the OG vampire, he's just not going to be able to hang tough up against Gecko and whatever pals he finds to help fight. The criminal-turned-vampire hunter managed to take down a Tom Savini vampire and a Danny Trejo vampire, so a Gerard Butler bloodsucker can't be too much trouble. Besides, Gecko's vampire vendetta's going to make him much more willing to do whatever it takes to destroy Dracula. It would be a pretty fine feather in his cap to say he killed the original vampire, plus his newfound Christian friend Kate (Juliette Lewis) would probably appreciate him killing Judas.
Not all Draculas are created equal, and sadly, Butler's version of the prince of darkness is one of the weaker iterations. He's a lot like the hot Dracula of "Blade: Trinity" played by Dominic Purcell, because he sort of just vamps around and doesn't really do anything, but at least the "Blade: Trinity" version can grow wings and fly. It seems like his primary power for Dracula of the year 2000 is smoldering looks, which just isn't going to cut it with Gecko.
After Gecko and friends defeat Dracula, they can hit the beach and enjoy something Dracula never could: some fun in the sun.