Star Trek Nemesis doesn’t suck as a Dracula movie

The vampire sees himself as a heroic freedom fighter.

In Star Trek Nemesis, Praetor Shinzon justifies his actions by painting himself as the Remans’ liberator. He asks Jean-Luc, “Were we Picards always warriors?”

Similarly, in Bram Stoker’s novel, Dracula sees himself as a heroic leader on the battlefield. Early in the book, while talking late at night with Jonathan Harker, Count Dracula recalls the many wars in which his ancestors—or, perhaps, he himself—has fought: “we of the Dracula blood … would not brook that we were not free” (Chapter II). As the novel continues, however, it becomes clear Dracula is continuing an age-old quest to conquer others, first in England, and then the world.

Other themes and images further establish Star Trek Nemesis as the franchise’s version of Dracula, from the crew’s initial shadowy, spooky audience with Shinzon on the Scimitar—compare Harker’s ominous arrival at Castle Dracula in the book’s opening pages—to the fact that Shinzon dies by impalement, just as Dracula’s brides are impaled by stakes in Stoker’s book. (The Count himself is done in by knife blades.) So if you’re looking for a Star Trek movie to watch this Halloween, Star Trek Nemesis is your best bet.