Dracula II: Ascension is a 2003 direct-to-video American-Romanian vampire film, directed by Patrick Lussier. It stars Jason Scott Lee, Stephen Billington and Diane Neal. Filmed entirely in Romania by Castel Film Studios, the film is the sequel to Dracula 2000. It was released direct-to-video on June 7, 2003. The film was followed by a sequel, Dracula III: Legacy (2005). Plot The film focuses on a small group of overzealous scientists who hope to use Dracula's desiccated - but still alive - body to discover the secret of immortality. Elizabeth Blaine, working at the New Orleans morgue, receives Dracula's "corpse" from her friend and co-worker Luke following the events of the first film. Elizabeth examines the body and pricks her finger on a fang in what is supposed to be a human mouth. This leads her to alert her boyfriend Lowell, who is suffering from an ultimately fatal degenerative sickness. Lowell claims a wealthy investor wants to fund their research into the mysterious corpse. On their heels is Father Uffizi, seemingly the Vatican's official vampire hunter. He has been given the task of not only killing Dracula, but granting him absolution (as the Church realizes that Dracula is in fact Judas Iscariot), which would allow the vampire to rest in peace. Unbeknownst to the Church, Uffizi has been infected with vampirism after being scratched by a fang during a previous hunt. Each day he exposes himself to the sun and whips his shirtless back, burning out the vampiric infection while he screams in pain. Luke doubts that Dracula is a purely natural phenomenon. He surrounds the now-awake vampire with folkloric wards like mustard seeds and knots. Meanwhile, Elizabeth feels increasingly strange as the infection in her grows, as does her attraction/bond to Dracula. Another member of the team injects himself with Dracula's blood and becomes a vampire, setting out to feed. He kills a woman, making her undead like himself. Uffizi finds and kills them both. Lowell reveals that there is no "secret investor" and that he used Elizabeth and the others to find a cure for himself. An injection "cures" him, but he survives mere moments before Uffizi arrives. Uffizi tells Elizabeth, now on the verge of becoming a vampire herself, to enter the sunlight and burn away her vampirism. Eric, a member of the team turned by Dracula, attacks the group but is killed with holy water by Luke