Dracula 2000

In 2000 London, Matthew Van Helsing, a grandson of 19th-century physician Abraham Van Helsing, owns an antique shop built over the site of Carfax Abbey. One night, Van Helsing's secretary, Solina, her boyfriend Marcus, and their companions Trick, Nightshade, Dax, and Eddie break into the shop's underground vault, believing it must contain valuables. Instead, they discover a sealed silver coffin. While attempting to open the coffin, Eddie and Dax are impaled by spikes, spraying the coffin with blood and alerting Van Helsing to their presence. Assuming the coffin must contain his valuables, the group escapes with it aboard a plane to New Orleans, and Van Helsing arranges a flight to pursue them, unwittingly accompanied by his apprentice, Simon Sheppard. Aboard their plane, Nightshade unlocks the coffin, revealing the withered body of Dracula. Having been awakened by the blood on his coffin, Dracula attacks and vampirizes Solina and her group. Rejuvenated, Dracula has a vision of a young woman, named Mary Heller, who simultaneously sees him. After the plane crashes in a Louisiana swamp, the seemingly deceased passengers are taken to a makeshift morgue, while Dracula vampirizes Valerie Sharpe, a presenter reporting on the crash. He then travels to New Orleans to find Mary. Estranged from her family, Mary has recently been experiencing vivid dreams about Dracula, unaware of who he is. Van Helsing and Simon arrive in New Orleans and destroy most of Dracula's newborn vampires. Afterward, Van Helsing confesses to Simon that he is Abraham Van Helsing, who defeated Dracula in 1897, and has extended his own life by regularly injecting Dracula's blood from within the leeches that accompanied Dracula and posing as his own descendants to disguise it. In the century since, Van Helsing has failed to find a method of permanently killing Dracula. All that is known, though, is that Dracula abhors God, Christian cultures, and silver, and is ancient and the first of his kind. Van Helsing also reveals that Mary is his daughter. She was conceived after Van Helsing began his injections and therefore shares a blood connection to Dracula. Van Helsing's wife left with Mary after learning his secrets and of what he had done. Dracula is led to Mary's home by her friend Lucy Westerman, who he seduces and vampirizes. There, he later confronts and kills Van Helsing. On her return, Mary finds her father's bloodied corpse and is ambushed by Dracula and his brides; Solina, Valerie, and Lucy. Simon arrives just in time to save her from Dracula's beast form. The pair briefly escapes into a church cemetery, but Dracula soon catches and abducts Mary. Dracula explains that he has spent centuries searching for someone like him, but born rather than vampirized like his thralls. On a rooftop, Dracula transforms Mary and reveals that he is Judas Iscariot, the Apostle who betrayed Jesus Christ to the Sanhedrin for a bribe of thirty pieces of silver. After Jesus was crucified, Judas hanged himself out of guilt, shame and remorse at sunset, but he was revived by God and turned into the world's first vampire as punishment for his sins. Dracula blames Jesus for his damnation because he had foreknowledge of his betrayal and failed to avert the prophecy. Seeking revenge, the fallen Apostle aims to spite Christ by causing the world to be overrun by vampires. Mary suggests that Dracula cannot die because he has not sought God's forgiveness, but Dracula refuses to ever submit to Jesus or God again. After Simon kills Valerie, he is subdued by Solina and Lucy and brought to Dracula, who offers his blood to Mary. She feigns the bite before she and Simon kill the remaining brides and stab Dracula to avenge her father, revealing that she still has free will. An enraged Dracula attacks Mary, who wraps some retaining cable from a large crucifix around his neck and drags him over the roof edge. As dawn breaks, and Dracula looks up at the image of Jesus on the crucifix, the sunlight immolates him. He apparently releases Mary from her vampirism before perishing. Sometime later, with Simon's support, Mary has taken her father's role in guarding Dracula's remains to prevent the vampire from returning. But both of Mary's eyes are briefly see turning clear, particularly turning into vampiric eyes, revealing that she is still a vampire, particularly a dhampir and that, Dracula did not actually release Mary from her vampirism at all.