Dracula Review – Besson’s Love-Struck Reinterpretation of the Timeless Gothic Tale is Ridiculous but Watchable
Maybe interest is limited for a new version of Dracula from Luc Besson, the filmmaker known for polished extravagance. And yet, it’s worth noting: his lavishly upholstered vampire romance has ambition and panache – and with its B-movie charm, I might just favor compared with Eggers’s dignified recent take of Nosferatu. Odd details emerge, including one shot that appears to show a land border between France and Romania.
The Veteran Actor as a Witty Yet Careworn Vampire-Hunting Priest
Christoph Waltz embodies a witty yet careworn vampire-hunting priest – I can’t believe he hasn’t played such a part earlier – who ends up in Paris in 1889 during the centennial of the French Revolution. So does the malevolent vampire count, brought to life by the seasoned horror actor Caleb Landry Jones using a distorted Eastern European tone evoking Steve Carell’s Gru of the Despicable Me series. This character he seemed destined to play.
The Story: A Chronicle of Longing
The plot unfolds as follows: the vampire lord has wandered endlessly the earth in anguish for hundreds of years after his transformation into a vampire, a consequence for his faithless sorrow over the death of his beloved Elisabeta (an inaugural screen appearance for Zoë Bleu, the offspring of Rosanna Arquette). the vampire has been searching, searching, searching for some woman who might be the return of his departed beloved. As ill fortune would have it, the chosen woman is revealed as Mina (portrayed once more by Bleu), the modest betrothed of Dracula’s feeble property handler, Jonathan Harker (played by Ewens Abid), who has recently been to Dracula’s fortress to negotiate his real estate holdings and whose miniature portrait of the lovely Mina drew the vampire’s attention.
The Filmmaker’s Approach and Comic Flair
Besson organizes Dracula’s second-act backstory of worldwide travels in various outrageous costumes confidently, and he willingly includes providing funny bits with a distinctly Mel Brooks flavour – like the count’s repeated and futile attempts to kill himself following Elisabeta’s passing, along with comical sequences that follow Dracula applies to himself with a specific fragrance in historic Florence, which causes him to be compelling to the opposite sex. Outlandish but entertaining.
Dracula is available digitally from 1 December and on DVD and Blu-ray starting the twenty-second of December. It plays in Australian cinemas beginning on the fifth of February, 2026.