Dracula: The See Me Rollin', They Hatin'...
I would like to nominate this film's interpetation of Dracula for the single most gangster vampire in history:
1- When a group of small children get in his way, Dracula deals with the problem himself. No henchmen, no whining, he gets up and starts hunting the little bastards down. He goes to their house and starts tossing dynamite. He tells the little *beep* parents exactly what's what ("I will have your son.") Full stop. Sure, he could've a bit more subtle but then he wouldn't be the Prince of Transylvania, would he? Princes of Transylvania don't do subtle! They impale people, they stab people, they toss dynamite into a child's tree house!
2- Dracula knows exactly what he wants and nothing is going to stop him. Throw a small town police force at the Terminator and you'll see the overrated death machine pause. Throw the same cops at Dracula and the mother *beep* doesn't even break his stride. A pimp slap here, a neck snap there. Notice he doesn't even kill all of the cops. He just toys with them, bats them around like rag dolls.
3- Dracula travels in style. Always. From a vintage WW2 bomber to the fliest black sedan in the world. Nothing is too good for the Dark Prince.
4- Dracula is merciless. When he's hungry, he munches on coeds. When he wants the amulet? He's getting that amulet. Most villains might stop and say "Am I really willing to kill a little girl to get what I want?" Dracula on the other hand barely even blinks as he force slams SGG and prepares to choke slam Dora the Explorer. If The Monster hadn't suddenly gone soft, we'd all be bowing down to the Lord Vladimir Tepes Dracula by now.
5- Recruitment is key for an evil overlord and for the most part, Dracula is 3-1. He manages to find a werewolf, maybe even the last damned one left, then he straps the good side to a chair until the moon rises and his furry henchman starts to see what side his bread is buttered on. He calls out to a mummified corpse, maybe not the most fearsome dude on the planet but when this guy was alive he was probably a very evil dude so Dracula keeps him on the team out of respect to his elders. He even finds himself his own little fish monster to do his bitch work (since that's all that thing seemed to do). And the funny thing? Each one of these guys are mindless killing machines with agendas of their own but when Drac picks up the phone, they take his damned call. Cause that's how he rolls: with a crew of inhuman psychopaths.
His sole mistake was Frank. Honestly, this looked like a home run. But Frankie went soft on Dracula and instead of raising an unstoppable killing machine, he raised a sissified child hugger.
All in all, Monster Squad's Dracula was one of the best portrayals of an undead prince/gangster in all of moviedom.