Dracula Review – Besson’s Love-Struck Revamp of the Gothic Classic is Ridiculous but Entertaining
Maybe there is no great enthusiasm for an updated adaptation of Dracula from Luc Besson, the filmmaker known for glossiness and bloat. However, it’s worth noting: his richly designed vampire romance has ambition and panache – and in all its Hammer-y cheesiness, it could be preferable to it to the recent, stately interpretation by Robert Eggers of Nosferatu. Odd details emerge, such as a scene that appears to show a territorial boundary between France and Romania.
Christoph Waltz as a Witty Yet Careworn Vampire-Hunting Priest
Christoph Waltz embodies a humorous yet burdened man of the church pursuing the undead – I can’t believe he hasn’t played this role before – who finds himself in Paris in 1889 during the centennial of the French Revolution. Likewise present is the sinister Dracula, played by the body-horror veteran Caleb Landry Jones with a mangled central European accent evoking Steve Carell’s Gru from the Despicable Me comedies. It’s a role he seemed destined to play.
The Plot: A Tale of Love and Loss
The story is this: Dracula has wandered endlessly the earth in sorrow over four centuries after his transformation into a vampire, a consequence due to his blasphemous mourning over the death of his beloved Elisabeta (an inaugural screen appearance for Zoë Bleu, Rosanna Arquette’s child). The count has looked tirelessly for a lady who would be the reincarnation of his deceased partner. As ill fortune would have it, the lucky lady proves to be Mina (also Bleu, of course), the modest betrothed of Dracula’s feeble property handler, Jonathan Harker (enacted by Ewens Abid), who lately visited to the count’s castle to negotiate his land assets and the tiny painting of the charming Mina attracted Dracula’s gaze.
Besson’s Handling and Lighthearted Touch
Besson structures Dracula’s middle-section history of global roaming sporting extravagant attire confidently, and he willingly includes giving us humorous scenes in the style of Mel Brooks – like the vampire’s constant unsuccessful tries to end his own life following Elisabeta’s passing, along with comical sequences that follow Dracula douses himself with a specific fragrance in 18th-century Florence, that renders him unavoidably attractive to females. Outlandish but entertaining.
Dracula is on digital platforms beginning on the first of December and on DVD and Blu-ray from 22 December. It plays in Australian cinemas from 5 February 2026.
