Is Netflix’s Castlevania the first great video game adaption?

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Typically in the movie industry, video game adaptations have failed to impress critics and audience members. Last year’s Warcraft and Assassin’s Creed took losses after neglecting to please video game fans. It’s always a risk when you release a high budget video game movie with an all-star cast. With Netflix releasing a variety of increasingly popular shows, it seems to be a lower risk platform to release movies and shows like Castlevania, which has a smaller amount of pressure to succeed. The recently released four-episode season is based off the 1986 Konami video game which resulted in over 30 sequels. The horror-themed action adventure game series focuses on the Belmont family, a clan of vampire fighters, and their fight with Dracula. This side scrolling platform game, which has fostered a wide fan base over its 30 year run, certainly deserves a strong adaptation.

Castlevania is roughly based off the popular game Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse. The series opens with Lisa of Lupu, a commoner woman born in the Wallachia region of Romania in 1455. She desires to become a doctor, but with the lack of real science and constant prevalence of superstition, to obtain knowledge she seeks out Dracula whom she convinces to open his laboratory to her. After falling in love with her, Dracula lived as a common man married Lisa. Twenty years later, the science she has learned has been deemed as witchcraft and Lisa Tepes was burned at the stake. After learning that his wife was burned at the stake, Dracula becomes engulfed with genocidal rage.

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This sets up the story of Trevor Belmont, voiced by The Hobbit’s Richard Armitage, the last of a monster hunting family. Trevor Belmont is a sarcastic drunkard who wields a whip and a cocky attitude. The Speakers, a society of magicians, are a force that work alongside Trevor to protect Wallachia. After an unpleasant run in with the evil church clergy, Trevor agrees to save the life of Sypa, a Speaker who went missing trying to find someone who could stop Dracula’s demon hordes. Together, they venture out and seek this savior who could end Dracula’s reign of terror.

With the potential to portray him as a vicious slayer, Castlevania does an excellent job of humanizing Dracula. His feelings towards his wife and the rage he feels after her murder show him as a developed character instead of a mindless monster. When he learns of Lisa’s death, Dracula gives the citizens of Wallachia one year to settle their affairs before he sets his vengeance that will wipe out the whole town. Graham McTavish voices Dracula and he expertly balances compassion as well as rage towards humans.

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Castlevania has an anti-Church element to it that plays a lot in the characters and storyline throughout. As a character, Trevor goes against the norm when it comes to people telling him how he can and cannot act in the town of Wallachia. With how people are treated in Wallachia, the show paints the upper-class townsfolk, whose religious beliefs are against witchcraft, as the central antagonist. The clergymen regularly beat and kill nonconforming citizens and have the ultimate goal of destroying all speakers.

Castlevania certainly does not stray away from stylized violence. The animation from Powerhouse Studios offers gore splattering scenes mixed with intense action. The mysterious creatures in the show provide scenes that feel like they’re straight out of a video game. Trevor goes on various ‘side quests’ to find a Speaker and is halted by one-eyed monsters and hibernating vampires. Once he has completed his side missions, he is able to gain information and assistance to reach his ultimate goal, stopping Dracula from wiping out Wallachia and possibly the world.

Castlevania is sure to thrill fans of the video game. The newest Netflix series stays true to its subject material and is not afraid to incorporate bloody violence that makes the game so popular. With only a four-episode introduction, it is hard to tell where the story will go from here, but Netflix already promises to release more episodes in the near future* continuing the saga of the hit Konami game. It is a show, although short, that had me instantly hooked and excited for more episodes to come.

*Netflix has renewed the series for an eight-episode second season.