Premiering on Kids' WB! in 2004, "The Batman" was a different kind of animated series for the Dark Knight. Its initial premise focused on a younger Bruce Wayne still carving out his path as a vigilante, facing some of his biggest villains for the first time and evading capture from the police. As the successor to the critically acclaimed "Batman: The Animated Series" (and by extension Batman Beyond), "The Batman" certainly had a tough act to follow. Nevertheless, the show acquired a following and lasted five seasons before ending in 2008. Unlike its predecessor though, "The Batman" has seemed to fall into obscurity. I myself haven't watched it in years, which is kind of a shame since this series played a part in reigniting my love for Batman in conjunction with the release of "Batman Begins" in 2005. I started rewatching the show on HBO Max and found it holds up mostly well. "The Batman" did a lot of revamps to the mythology of the character, with the results being a mixed bag; some changes were done very well while others were iffy at best. Overall, I consider "The Batman" the silver medal in terms of animated series that could serve as an introduction to Batman, even if didn't live up to its full potential in some areas.
The series produced one direct to video movie in October 2005, "The Batman vs. Dracula". Very loosely based on the graphic novel "Batman and Dracula: Red Rain", it's pretty much what you expect. The legendary vampire finds himself resurrected in modern day Gotham City and seeks to rebuild his undead army, and only the Batman can put a stop to it. I was going to save revisiting this until October to line up with Halloween, but since I've been rewatching the show, I figured I'd keep the train going and look at this a little earlier. So let's consider this "a midsummer's nightmare." And as it turns out, "The Batman vs. Dracula" is actually even better than I remember.
Essentially the film succeeds at combining the superheroics of a Batman story and the horror elements of Dracula. This is evident right off the bat (yeah, I know what I did there) with the opening credits as the score is a mix of the show's music and something reminiscent of the opening music from the 1931 Dracula film. Those familiar with that classic will pick up other similarities in this film with Penguin filling Renfield's role as Dracula's human servant and Dracula's infatuation with the female lead, Vicky Vale in this case, and making her his bride.
As mentioned, the film does have a horror feel to it, doing as much as they can without featuring anything too traumatizing. While it is technically unrated, I'd consider it a PG, which is saying something considering "The Batman" was rated TV-Y7. With the direct to video release, this allowed the makers of the show the chance to push themselves without the constraints of a network Saturday morning cartoon show. While "The Batman" didn't delve as deep into mature themes as "Batman: The Animated Series" and could be considered more kid friendly, that didn't mean it talked down to anyone or ignore some of the franchise's darker elements. One of the things that really stood out to me of the darker atmosphere the film produced was just how grimy and maybe somewhat totalitarian Arkham Asylum really was in this show, as well as how some can play the legal system and get a lighter sentence by pleading insanity in lieu of jail time.
The portrayal of Dracula (voiced by Peter Stormare) is on point with how the character should be, and in this rewatch, I realized that he fits really well as a Batman villain in ways than just having a bat motif. Most Batman villains can be seen as dark reflections of our hero, and Dracula here is no different. Dracula egotistically believes that it's his legend that inspired the modern day Batman of Gotham, and even the people of Gotham are accusing Batman of the growing number of missing people (referred to as the "Lost Ones") who are in reality being turned into vampires to grow Dracula's army. And while Dracula doesn't realize Batman is Bruce Wayne until the climax, this also brings about the similarity of both being seemingly elegant gentlemen to the public while hiding their dark secrets. I also like how Dracula's design is shown to be an anti-thesis to Batman with his cloak having similar scallops and red highlights compared to the blue in Batman's cape and cowl.
By extension, I really enjoy how vampirism is depicted in the film. The vampires' designs are shown to have deformed almost bat like features, reminding me somewhat of the vampires from "30 Days of Night". There's also a cool feature where the vampires have this kind of x-ray vision when they sense a beating heart and see the blood flowing throughout it and the body's circulatory system. Lastly, what's also interesting is that despite the supernatural aspects of vampirism, Batman approaches the threat scientifically, eventually producing a serum that cures Dracula's victims. Not only does it allow for the movie to keep a kid friendly tone by reverting the vampires rather than kill them, but it really highlights the power of Bruce's mind as both a detective and a scientist.
Vicky Vale (voiced by Tara Strong) is brought in for her first and only appearance in the world of "The Batman" as Bruce's love interest, and it's the closest the series ever had to romance compared to its predecessor. Vicky and Bruce are shown to truly care about each other, though Bruce's activities as Batman keep him from letting her get to know the real him despite her desire to break down his walls. It's very similar to the 1989 Tim Burton film, even with what may be an homage to it with Vicky looking at old newspaper headlines including the night of his parents' murder. Unfortunately there's no real resolution to their relationship in this film and I feel it's left ambiguous whether Vicky figured out Bruce was Batman during the climax; when the final fight with Dracula began, Batman told Vicky to run, and I kind of think he yelled in Bruce's voice rather than Batman's. I really wish the film had an extra scene to wrap up their story or that they could have brought Vicky back in the proper show.
A real highlight of the film is the use of the Joker (voiced by Kevin Michael Richardson), particularly after he is turned into a vampire himself. After being transformed, he breaks into a blood bank and begins to gorge himself. Batman arrives and the two battle, during which shelves of vials falls against the wall. Blood begins dripping down like rain and completely drenches Joker, who is shown to be in pure ecstacy from it, allowing Batman the chance to incapacitate him with a garlic bomb to the face. And in case you're wondering, the scene is lighted in a way where the blood isn't shown to be red since that definitely would have been pushing the limit of what they could have been allowed to do; still pretty disturbing under any circumstance. Afterwards, the Joker is locked in a far off corner of the Batcave so Batman can use him as a test subject in his goal of creating a cure. These scenes are like watching an addict go through detox as Joker is shown suffering from bloodlust and begging for Batman to "feed him", going so far as to eat a passing cockroach.
Aside from the vampire parts, something I noticed this time around is just how complicated Batman and Joker's relationship is. In their first fight of the film before Dracula is revived, the Joker allows himself to fall into the river to avoid capture not realizing his electrocuting joy buzzer is damaged. Once he hits the water, the Joker is shown being electrocuted and convulsing from the shocks until eventually submerging; I honestly forgot how freaky that part was. Batman's reaction afterwards is almost like mourning; despite how much of a monster Joker is, it really shows how sacred life is to Bruce that he wouldn't wish death on even his worst enemy. But of course Joker survived (because the Joker always survives), encounters Dracula, gets turned and then taken prisoner by Batman. Eventually, Batman does give the suffering Joker a bag of his own blood. While Batman may not care for the Joker as much as the other seems to in his own way, this act at least shows that Batman has some sense of pity for the clown prince of crime.
Other things that work about the movie are really things that worked for "The Batman" in general. The voice acting and music are still on point, and the highly stylized character designs and art direction by Jeff Matsuda (whose style you may also recognize from the Jackie Chan Adventures cartoon) make for some pretty good fight scenes and an awesome climax. And while Joker and Penguin were really overused over the course of the show, the roles they played in the film were fitting and did have some purpose.
Overall, it was nice revisiting "The Batman vs. Dracula" with an analytical eye and enjoying it even more now than I already did when I was younger. Unfortunately, this film isn't available on HBO Max at the time of this writing, which means it's probably more obscure than the series it spun off from. Nonetheless, I really recommend tracking down a DVD copy if you can. Whether you're a fan of Batman, Dracula, vampires, or horror in general, "The Batman vs. Dracula" is definitely something worth sinking your teeth into.
