Netflix Castlevania Review

Netflix’s new Castlevania series is a short anime loosely based on the video game Castlevania 3, one of the best games in the franchise. The story revolves around the country of Wallachia shortly after Dracula’s mortal wife Lisa is burned at the stake for witchcraft by the Church because she was practicing medicine. Dracula rages at this and vows to raise an army from hell to destroy all humans in the country.

This show has some of the same talent behind Avatar the Last Airbender working on it and the animation and fighting choreography is consistently top notch. Although they do a minimal amount of world building they do succeed in creating a very grim and gritty view of Wallachia in the late 15th century reminiscent of Game of Thrones.

The story follows Trevor Belmont, the last of the Belmonts, whose family has been excommunicated and their home and ancestral lands burned by the Church. Trevor is traveling the country as a defeated drunk and his primary motivation seems to be simply to get clear of Dracula’s army. The first season shows Trevor becoming involved in the fight against Dracula, joining Castlevania 3 characters Sypha and Alucard in their quest to destroy him.

The show does a lot right. The animation and the fighting choreography alone make it worth watching. The fights are satisfyingly gory and violent in a way that seems true to the games and the world the show has built.

The show does a fantastic job setting up dramatic and intense scenes, including a surprisingly deep conversation between a corrupt Bishop and a demon. Vampires, in addition to sorcery, rely on steampunk technology inspired by Castlevania’s Clocktower levels which is a welcome and refreshing visual style for their lairs and castles.

One of the most interesting additions to the lore is Sypha’s people, the Speakers. The Speakers are portrayed as a combination of monks, Jews, and gypsies. They are loathed and feared by the villagers despite their desire to help. Some of the best scenes in the series deal with the Speakers courageously facing their impending slaughter at the hands of an angry mob unleashed by the Church. The show does a great job showing real traditional issues in Wallachia such as religious and racial intolerance.

The show’s biggest flaw is its short length and pacing. The show was originally intended to be a movie before being released as a series. The season tops out at 2 hours so there isn’t a lot of time to do things. This is problematic because despite creating effective scenes, the show seems driven to charge from interesting scene to interesting scene in the shortest time possible and creating plot holes and confusion in the process.

Our first introduction to Dracula is when Lisa simply marches into his castle and asks to be taught in science. Despite Lisa marching through an entire forest of people impaled on stakes, our first encounter with Dracula makes him seem very milquetoast and he agrees to Lisa’s request to be trained in the ways of science for basically no stated reason. In the games, it is implied his affection for Lisa may be because she reminds him of his original bride, but nothing in the show indicates this is the case.

After Lisa’s death, Dracula returns to Wallachia, discovers what has happened, and vows genocide. He grants the people of Wallachia one year to put their affairs in order before he unleashes an army of demons upon them. This is the very definition of forced since it seems unlikely Dracula with all his hellish power needed an army to accomplish this. His son, Alucard, even offers to help him take revenge as long as he’s hunting down those guilty of this crime and not committing genocide on an entire species. Dracula rejects this compromise and immediately attacks his son.

As a result of these decisions, Dracula’s characterization is weak and his motivation seems all over the map. The character and plot arc is completely forced. The series is trying to get us to the “start” of the story as quickly as possible and is simply charging over any kind of normal plot structure or character development. The result being that the entire series feels rushed and that the story ends right where it wanted to begin. It feels more like a pilot than an actual first season. This will hopefully be remedied in Season two where the number of episodes has risen from four to eight.

A similar issue with pacing occurs when an angry mob attempts to massacre Trevor and the Speaker with the Church’s approval. Trevor accuses the Church of stirring up all these troubles by committing murder on undesirables including Dracula’s wife, and the village mob spontaneously switches sides and starts attacking the priests. This leads to a good scene with Trevor teaching the villagers how to fight demons and fending off Dracula’s army however we jump from the villagers being enemies to being allies so fast and with so little foundation that we’re distracted during the fighting scene trying to figure out what just happened. Trevor gives no evidence of his charges and despite being a barely tolerated outsider, now the villagers decide to believe him and support him against the Church.

The first encounter between Trevor and Alucard leads to a fight which is very well done, however it’s hard to focus on the well choreographed fight because the entire time I was wondering why Sypha wasn’t getting involved. After discovering a vampire down here she just lets him try to kill Trevor. Alucard is merely testing Trevor and has no intent to harm him but Sypha doesn’t know that. She just sits back and watches, only becoming involved at the very end.

All in all this show was pretty decent. I’m hoping that these enumerated flaws will be corrected in Season two since the longer length will give more time for nuance and arcs.

Final Score:

7/10