Dracula Review – Luc Besson’s Romantic Revamp of the Timeless Gothic Tale is Absurd but Watchable
Maybe audiences aren’t clamoring for a new version of Dracula from Luc Besson, the celebrated French director for glossiness and bloat. However, one must admit: his opulently crafted love story with vampires displays creativity and style – and amid its theatrical camp, it could be preferable to it to the recent, stately interpretation by Robert Eggers of Nosferatu. Odd details emerge, such as a scene that looks like it presents a land border between France and Romania.
Christoph Waltz as a Humorously Exhausted Priest Tracking the Undead
Christoph Waltz embodies a clever but beleaguered vampire-hunting priest – it feels natural for him to tackle this role before – who finds himself in Paris in 1889 for the French Revolution centenary celebrations. The same goes for the evil Count Dracula, enacted by the seasoned horror actor Caleb Landry Jones speaking in a twisted regional dialect evoking Carell’s Gru character from the Despicable Me comedies. It’s a role that he too was born to take on.
The Narrative: A Tale of Love and Loss
The story is this: the count has been restlessly roaming the globe in sorrow for 400 years following his rise as one of the undead, a punishment for his irreligious grief after the passing of his wife, Elisabeta (a movie debut role for Zoë Bleu, Rosanna Arquette’s child). The count has sought relentlessly for a lady who would be the rebirth of his departed beloved. By cruel fate, the chosen woman is revealed as Mina (also Bleu, of course), the reserved future wife of the count’s timid estate manager, Jonathan Harker (played by Ewens Abid), who has recently been to the vampire’s estate to review his real estate holdings and the small picture of the charming Mina attracted Dracula’s gaze.
Besson’s Direction and Comic Flair
Besson arranges Dracula’s middle-section history of worldwide travels sporting extravagant attire skillfully, and he doesn’t shy away from offering funny bits in the style of Mel Brooks – like Dracula’s ongoing failed efforts to kill himself following Elisabeta’s passing, along with comical sequences that result after Dracula douses himself with a specific fragrance in 18th-century Florence, that renders him irresistible to women. Outlandish but entertaining.
Dracula is on digital platforms from 1 December and on DVD and Blu-ray from December 22nd. It screens in Australian cinemas starting February 5, 2026.
