Being a Castlevania fan I decided to go see Haunted Castle on Imax last night.

Boy was I in for a treat!

If you haven't seen it already then I suggest you do, as it has alot of references to CastleVania (well that I thought anyway).

You first enter the castle's badlands, that being of a graveyard, then into the castle itself which has moving knights that try spear you and try to chop you with axes. Alot of the architecture is similar to CV games with gargoyles cathedral like windows and large stair cases and lower dungeons.

Though the story was revolved around Rock n' Roll, the devil, and inheritng your mother's castle, I thought that I was actually walking through some of the levels from CV games, such as the Graveyard, the Castle itself, a huge elevator that took you down to a Dungeon, a freaky Roller Coaster, the Opera Room (which was awesome), and then back to the main castle.

The main character sounded a bit wussy but if you ignored him it wasn't so bad. Some of the minions were that of CV games or related; Gargoyles, Imps, Skeleton prisoners, Ghosts, even a Skeleton riding Cerberus from CV64, and what would a castle be without Bats? But alas, no vampires to watch.

One part that I thought was pretty trippy: just before you entered the castle, as two statue figures above the gateway caught my attention. One was a woman in battle gear with a whip, and the other was either a demon or some sort being whipped, (was this Sonia Belmont? Was one of the producers a CastleVania fan? or just sheer coincidence?)

Who knows....

Apart from seeing this on a huge screen, it was also formatted in the awesome Imax 3D, so certain things felt like they were coming at you, most noted is the two Gargoyles that came alive and reached at you to give you the contract and pen, you could almost grab it to sign your soul away! Alot of the 3D(CG) scenery as well was in 3D, so you felt like you were behind a tree or statue.

The only minus was it didn't seem to go for very long...approximately 45 minutes, but overall I was impressed. The soundtrack was good with a SotN gothic rock feel all the way through.

Overall, I would urge any CastleVania fan to go see it (especially if you live in Adelaide Australia as it closes down soon).

Rating: 8 out of 10.

Official site of the Haunted Castle film.