First trailer for Dracula Untold takes the vampire lord back to his blood-soaked origin

The famous vampire that started it all returns to the big screen in Dracula Untold, and this time around, he’s getting a fancy, new origin story that casts him as the hero — or as heroic as someone can be with fangs and the ability to turn into a cloud of bats.

Actor Luke Evans (Fast & Furious 6, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug) stars in the upcoming film from classic monster studio Universal Pictures, which casts him as Vlad III Țepeș, the man who would become the vampire Dracula. The new trailer is set to Lorde’s haunting cover of Tears For Fears’ 1985 song “Everybody Wants To Rule The World” — which also set the tone for the recent Assassin’s Creed: Unity trailer — and frames Vlad as a conquering hero who makes a deal with a sinister figure in order to protect his family. With the deal comes a thirst for blood, and a host of fantastic powers that are depicted with some eye-catching VFX sequences in the footage.

Filmmaker Gary Shore makes his directorial debut with Dracula Untold, which also stars Dominic Cooper, Sarah Gadon, Charles Dance, and Charlie Cox.

It’s worth noting that this is the first big-budget Dracula film to be released since Dracula 2000, so there’s been some time since our last big-screen encounter with the vampire.

Dracula Untold hits theaters October 17.