Dracula Review – The French Director’s Passionate Reimagining of the Classic Horror Story is Absurd but Engaging
Perhaps there is no great enthusiasm for a fresh take of Dracula from Luc Besson, the French maestro for stylish excess. However, one must admit: his lavishly upholstered romantic vampire tale displays creativity and style – and with its B-movie charm, I might just favor to it to Robert Eggers’s recent, solemnly classy version of Nosferatu. Odd details emerge, including one shot that looks like it presents a territorial boundary between France and Romania.
The Veteran Actor as a Humorously Exhausted Clergyman Hunting Vampires
Christoph Waltz portrays a humorous yet burdened man of the church pursuing the undead – I can’t believe he hasn’t played such a part earlier – who finds himself in Paris in 1889 to mark the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution. So does the malevolent vampire count, enacted by the body-horror veteran Caleb Landry Jones with a mangled central European accent evoking the voice of Gru by Steve Carell from the Despicable Me comedies. This character that he too was born to take on.
The Plot: A Tale of Love and Loss
The story is this: the vampire lord has been restlessly roaming the world in anguish for 400 years after his transformation into a vampire, a penalty for his irreligious grief after the passing of his spouse Elisabeta (an inaugural screen appearance for Zoë Bleu, Rosanna Arquette’s child). Dracula has looked tirelessly for a lady who might be the return of his deceased partner. As ill fortune would have it, the chosen woman is revealed as Mina (portrayed once more by Bleu), the reserved future wife of the count’s timid estate manager, Jonathan Harker (Ewens Abid), who just traveled to Dracula’s fortress to negotiate his property portfolio and whose miniature portrait of the lovely Mina attracted Dracula’s gaze.
Besson’s Direction and Comic Flair
Besson arranges Dracula’s second-act backstory of worldwide travels wearing flamboyant outfits skillfully, and he doesn’t shy away from giving us humorous scenes reminiscent of Mel Brooks – for example Dracula’s ongoing failed efforts to end his own life after Elisabeta’s death, along with farcical scenes that occur when Dracula applies to himself using a particular scent during the 1700s in Florence, which makes him compelling to the opposite sex. Ridiculous and watchable.
Dracula is available digitally from 1 December and for physical purchase starting the twenty-second of December. It will be shown in Australian cinemas beginning on the fifth of February, 2026.
