No, this is not a sequel to Dracula 2000 - it's much, much worse than that. Gathering together such "never were's" like Casper Van Dien, former Playmate Erika Eleniak, and flash-in-the-pan rapper turned bad actor/sweater thief Coolio; Dracula 3000: Infinite Darkness is a messy attempt to combine the sci-fi and horror genres with director/co-writer Darrell James Roodt unable to capture either.

We know things have been made on the cheap from the opening sequences that at first shows distress signal footage from a cargo ship from Captain Udo Kier (who's made a career of bit roles in bad B-movies of late) before we're given a stale narrated introduction by Van Dien's character as he brings us up to speed about the crew onboard his salvage ship, "Mother III". They've been traveling the galaxy looking for wrecks to bring back and make money off of and they just so happen to stumble upon Kier's massive freighter, which is drifting through space with all its crew oddly missing.

Upon docking the vessel (shown using bland CGI effects), the crew starts to investigate the dingy corridors finding it extremely weird that such a huge ship would be bereft of anyone. They do however find a decomposed corpse in the command room (Kier's body) and unravel the fact that fifty years prior, in the year 2050, the ship had come under attack by a malevolent force. A force they find out about first hand upon finding rows-upon-rows of coffins on a cargo deck (which aren't secured at all and just simply lying on the floor).

From there we're given lame attempts at suspense, Coolio's annoying stoner character "187" (who talks way too much about "weed" and says "dude" enough you want to choke him) turning into a wise-cracking bloodsucker, and the crew being harassed by what has to be one of the most unmenacing vampires in horror film history - as portrayed by the script, and the wooden Langley Kirkwood, our "Count Orlock" just wanders around in a cape that looks like it was purchased at a dollar store unable to "turn" someone worth crap and crying like a little bitch when his arm is cut off in a hatchway door during the finale. Oh, and did I forget to mention that Van Dien's character happens to be a Van Helsing, Eleniak (who's looking much worse for wear years after her memorable striptease in Steven Seagal's Under Siege) is a cyborg, and the only way they figure out how to kill the vamps is using pool cues as they, according to the token disabled scientist, contain "organic wood".

Dracula 3000: Infinite Darkness is one horrid film. When not trying to be a boring sci-fi flick (since our good Count Orlock doesn't show up into about halfway in), the film is an inane try for a horror movie sporting poor acting, junky humour, and almost no bloodsucker attacks to even keep us interested. This is a complete waste of film in which the makers of the movie seemed to realize they were making a shit sandwich during production and decided to not even make an effort to make it at least entertainingly dumb - Hell, they even didn't bother trying to make a finale as the two surviving character lop off Orlock's arm (as mentioned above) and go off to have sex as the ship heads for the sun.

It's pretty bad when the best thing about the movie is the tagline on the box: "In space, the sun never rises." (Chris Hartley, 12/4/05)

Directed By: Darrell James Roodt.
Written By: Ivan Milborrow, Darrell James Roodt.

Starring: Casper Van Dien, Erika Eleniak, Coolio, Alexandra Kamp.