Christopher Atkins in Dracula Rising

'Fear Awakens in the Dark of the Night'

Witness the romance and tragedy of one man's undying passion that led him to sell his soul. In this epic horror, Vlad Dracula exchanges salvation for immortality so that he may avenge the brutal death of his true love. Now he journeys to the twentieth century to lay claim to the woman he so desperately loves.      

FH readers are aware of actor Christopher Atkins role in my sexual awakening.  I've written before about seeing The Blue Lagoon on VHS in the late 80's and it's lasting impact. (HERE:)  Although I was only a kid when I saw the flick, and as drawn as I was to Atkins looks, I remember thinking he wasn't that great of an actor...

Now, my attraction to the blonde beauty did have me catching some of his other projects, especially when I learned he showed a little skin.  I've seen most of his Dallas episodes, and of course, like very lover of the male form in movies, have seen A Night in Heaven, several times.  Well, I've seen his nude scenes several times....

Sadly, his acting never really improved.  Although there's a sort of naive innocence to most of his performances that sort of works, it also wears thin pretty quickly.  I'd never seen his appearance in 1993's Dracula Rising, but given today's theme, I thought it was time to check it out.

Atkins is pretty bad, but to be fair, so is the film.  Doing a little research, I'm not the only one who thinks so.  The film made more than few 'worst' horror film lists.  The film also has one of the most frustrating 'nude scenes' I've ever seen.  By this point in his career Atkins had already been in Playgirl and shown it all on screen.  Why then oh why, would director Fred Gallo work so hard to ensure we saw absolutely nothing.  

If you squint, you might catch some of Atkin's body in the underwater scenes, but it's so dark and badly edited, it's as if they purposely tried to 'promote' a nude scene, without actually following through by letting anyone see anything.  Atkins still looked hot, clothed or not, and his appeal not dampened by the story.  I noticed checking out his IMDB page that he has a half dozen films due out in the near future.  I'll be curious if his acting chops have improved all these decades after first jumping into the water.