Dracula Review – The French Director’s Romantic Reinterpretation of the Timeless Gothic Tale is Absurd but Entertaining
It’s possible interest is limited for an updated adaptation of Dracula from Luc Besson, the celebrated French director for stylish excess. And yet, it’s worth noting: his opulently crafted vampire romance displays creativity and style – and amid its theatrical camp, I might just favor to it to Robert Eggers’s recent, solemnly classy version of Nosferatu. Odd details emerge, including one shot that seems to depict a territorial boundary between France and Romania.
The Veteran Actor as a Clever but Weary Vampire-Hunting Priest
Christoph Waltz portrays a witty yet careworn man of the church pursuing the undead – it’s surprising he never took on such a part earlier – who finds himself in Paris in 1889 during the centennial of the French Revolution. Likewise present is the evil Count Dracula, played by the expert in grotesque roles Caleb Landry Jones with a mangled central European accent evoking Carell’s Gru character in the Despicable Me films. This character suits him perfectly.
The Plot: A Saga of Heartbreak
The story is this: Dracula has traveled ceaselessly the earth in torment for hundreds of years since he became undead, a penalty due to his blasphemous mourning after the passing of his spouse Elisabeta (a first film part for Zoë Bleu, daughter of Rosanna Arquette). The count has sought relentlessly for a lady who would be the return of his departed beloved. As ill fortune would have it, the chosen woman is revealed as Mina (also Bleu, of course), the modest betrothed of Dracula’s feeble property handler, Jonathan Harker (played by Ewens Abid), who just traveled to the count’s castle to review his real estate holdings and whose miniature portrait of the winsome Mina caught the count’s hooded eye.
Besson’s Direction and Comic Flair
Besson arranges Dracula’s flashback sequence of global roaming in various outrageous costumes skillfully, and he willingly includes giving us humorous scenes with a distinctly Mel Brooks flavour – such as the vampire’s constant unsuccessful tries to end his own life following Elisabeta’s passing, as well as comical sequences that result after Dracula sprays himself in a certain perfume in 18th-century Florence, that renders him compelling to the opposite sex. Ridiculous and watchable.
Dracula is available digitally beginning on the first of December and on DVD and Blu-ray starting the twenty-second of December. It screens in Australian cinemas starting February 5, 2026.
