Drakul is such a hidden gem, in fact, that I could find no reviews from your universe's film critics that address it. Therefore, I will assume it is universally admired and simply move on to explaining why it is a masterpiece. Please read on...
In the film’s opening, an echoey voice says something like, “Throughout history, war between good and evil has raged.” Footage from past wars appears under the opening titles, including disturbing footage of Nazis and corpse pits. Then the film cuts to what appears to be a hostage exchange on a snowy night. A prisoner named David Harkin is held in a van by several men dressed in black. Another man dressed in black in front of another car sets a suitcase with $100,000 on the asphalt. The man holding Harkin says, “If we’d known who he was, we’d have asked for a lot more.” He demands triple the price. “What are you, deaf? I said triple.”
“I understood you quite clearly,” says the other man. “Quite clearly.” A female cohort of his raises an impressive-looking firearm, and the kidnapper relents immediately.
She pulls the trigger on the weapon, a flamethrower, which roasts the man to a crisp as the woman laughs.
The victors take possession of David Harkin and the money, get into their car (a small, black Mazda SUV), and drive away, but not before setting a bomb underneath the van and blowing it up.
After this exciting opening, the film cuts to something even more exciting: a basement hallway in a hotel where United States Senator Christian Drake is giving a speech. After the speech, the senator takes a video call alone from a mysterious dark figure named Merooh, who promises Drake he will be the man who rules all that falls beneath the sky. Merooh tells Drake he must get rid of his wife Angela because she drinks too much.
Elsewhere, mysterious forces have sent for the hero of the film, Helsinger, and his friend Morrison. They meet a quirky blonde woman holding an umbrella at midnight near the U.S. Capitol. The woman is flanked by men who look like they can only be vampires.
She tells them to call her Lilith and she was sent by Dr. Stewart. She pays Helsinger some money and gives him a book, and then she and her vampiric companions disappear. Helsinger discovers he is being hired to find David Harkin, so he and Morrison investigate an empty building near a train station. Their search is fruitless, but the filmmakers reveal that Harkin is being held in the basement of the building by a security guard, and he is being fed upon by young female vampires wearing lingerie.
Back at the Senator’s house, he finishes an interview with a reporter, who tells him after the interview that Merooh wants to give him the services of a prostitute named Slava. He agrees with only a tiny bit of suspicion, sleeping with Slava as soon as the camera crew leaves.
At night, Helsinger and Morrison are fired upon by the vampire brides, who now wear trench coats and wield machine guns.
The next scene shows two reporters, Simon and Frankie, sitting in a car. The two buy a flash drive from a mysterious man named Mordecai, who does not like Frankie. As Mordecai climbs out of the car, Frankie says, “Go chase yourself.” He adds, “What a tool bag.”
“I think he likes you,” Simon says.
“Great. Like a pig likes bacon.” (I confess I do not understand this quip fully, but it is unmistakably hilarious.)
The flash drive shows video of Senator Drake sleeping with Slava. Simon says, “This is our Watergate, Frankie. Watergate! Boom!”
Frankie is less enthusiastic, as he believes someone as powerful as Senator Drake will kill them if they expose his lack of discretion.
In another shocking twist, Senator Drake wakes up to a TV news report (mysteriously, the TV is on as he awakens) about the death of his wife, who plunged in her car off a bridge into a river. The news is so critical that the anchorperson repeats the same verbiage twice, reinforcing the tragedy of Mrs. Drake’s death.
Later, Helsinger and Morrison meet with Dr. Stewart, played by the prolific Joe Estevez, who is surrounded by vampire servants. The doctor explains that the father of the kidnapped David Harkin is a problem. In fact, “David Harkin is the illegitimate son of the president of the United States. It could prove to be a little…awkward.”
Morrison wants to leave but Helsinger says it is more complicated, as they have agreed to complete a job for Dr. Stewart. One of the doctor’s vampires shows Morrison what will happen if they refuse: they will become the vampires’ “playthings.” A coffin is opened and a woman inside begs for help, illustrating Helsinger and Morrison’s predicament.
Morrison is horrified. “I thought you were the good guys.”
Dr. Stewart chuckles. “Good or evil, we all have an agenda that must be served. And you, gentlemen, are responsible for that.” Then he reiterates the narrative at the beginning of the film: “Throughout history, war between good and evil has raged. Man has fought and died fighting evil, and yet evil has spread to every land and to every people. And those in authority swayed man to believe that they were fighting for country or good or honor, all manner of things. Evil wanted to rid the world of all things that are kind of heart, good of spirit, and to create fear in man for things that are different or unusual. And to enslave man. And ultimately to turn the world into the one true place that they meant it to be.”
Helsinger simplifies things: “He wants us to eliminate Drake.”
“No,” Morrison says. “We don’t do that.”
Helsinger says they will find Harkin but they won’t go further. When they leave, however, Dr. Stewart indicates to his vampiric lawyer that Helsinger and Morrison should be eliminated.
In an exciting action scene, Helsinger and Morrison walk through a foggy tunnel when one of the doctor’s vampires attacks them. The vampire kills Morrison immediately, but his head is destroyed by another of Helsinger’s associates, a woman with dark hair. With the vampire dead, she asks Helsinger, “Shall we finish it?”
“Yes,” he replies, “we shall.”
Elsewhere, Senator Drake has another Zoom call with Merooh, the evil lord. Senator Drake wants out, especially after his wife’s death, but Merooh has taken his young daughter hostage. Although the image on the video call is just a logo, we hear his daughter’s voice as where her mommy is. “Uncle Merooh said she went on a trip. Can we go see her there?”
When the daughter is off the call, Drake tries to threaten Merooh. “I swear to God…”
“God? Christian, you know nothing of God. Don’t purport to. You were nothing when we found you in that town council meeting. You wanted power, and this, this is what I have given you!”
The next day, Helsinger and his assistant investigate one of Drake’s suburban houses, but they are confronted by an unusual man wearing a beaverskin cap with a pin showing the red star, hammer, and sickle of the Soviet Union. The man fires his shotgun at them but, in a thrilling action scene, they kill him, but Helsinger’s assistant is suddenly shot in the head, forcing him to run away.
Meanwhile, the senator is giving a speech to a group of veterans in an unadorned black room. As would any politician, he begins his speech with a recitation from Macbeth: “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day, and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death.” He finishes the speech and his assistant, Merooh’s servant, pushes him off the stage, saying, “The senator won’t be taking any questions.”
Coincidentally, reporters Simon and Frankie are at the speech, and they try to ask the senator about the woman named Slava he slept with, but he runs away. They go back to a hotel room to edit a video, but they are both abducted by female vampires, who are heralded by the haunting image of a bloody hand reaching from out of the dark.
The vampires question both reporters. Mordecai, the man who paid them, when asked who hired them to investigate Drake, quips that it was someone named “Why Don Choo Blow Me. He was an Asian guy.”
The vampire threatening him helpfully explains the joke and why it is not funny. “You’re suggesting that I perform a sexual act and making mockery of our Asian friends and their cultures. It’s very unbecoming, Mordecai.”
He repeats the joke and she gouges out his eyes while baring her fangs.
The next day, the final confrontation begins as Drake rides down an elevator with two female vampires, but they are shot when the doors open by Helsinger. Helsinger abducts Drake. “I’m not trying to kidnap you, I’m trying to save you!”
Suddenly, Dr. Stewart’s lawyer shoots Helsinger in the head, killing him after saying some cryptic words to him. The lawyer then shoots and kills Drake.
The film thus ends, having courageously explained and resolved nothing at all. There is a quick coda, however, implying that the blonde vampire Lilith might be replacing Drake as a presidential candidate.
The End
One might assume that a film about vampires called Drakul is a retelling of Bram Stoker's novel Dracula, and one would partially be correct. I found many, many similarities between the stories. One is that Drakul follows people named Harkin, Helsinger, and Dr. Stewart, while Dracula follows people named Harker, Van Helsing, and Dr. Seward. Also, both include vampires. The similarities are truly uncanny.
Aside from the literary allusions, Drakul is a fine film because it is nothing but shock after shock. It opens with a flamethrower murder and closes with the murder of the protagonist and the major secondary character. In between, two reporters die, having uncovered nothing. The film is truly nihilistic and a prime example of a film whose narrative propels itself forward by introducing characters and then murdering them. Such an approach might seem philosophically humdrum, but Drakul also ends by explaining nothing and refusing to make clear who the two (?) warring factions of Merooh and Dr. Stewart represent. As such, it is cinematic nihilism of the highest order. One can only conclude that writer/director Michael Merino, who also directed such films with titles like Clutch (2025) -- not to be confused with Clutch (2024) -- and A Texas Nightmare (2025), is a filmmaker to watch and study.