Dracula Movie Critique – The French Director’s Love-Struck Revamp of the Classic Horror Story is Ridiculous but Engaging
Perhaps audiences aren’t clamoring for an updated adaptation of Dracula from Luc Besson, the filmmaker known for stylish excess. Still, it has to be said: his opulently crafted vampire romance boasts bold vision and flair – and in all its Hammer-y cheesiness, it could be preferable to it to Eggers’s dignified recent take of Nosferatu. There are some very bizarre touches, like a particular moment that seems to depict a territorial boundary between France and Romania.
Christoph Waltz as a Humorously Exhausted Clergyman Hunting Vampires
Christoph Waltz plays a clever but beleaguered vampire-hunting priest – it’s surprising he never took on this role before – who ends up in Paris in 1889 for the French Revolution centenary celebrations. So does the evil Count Dracula, played by the body-horror veteran Caleb Landry Jones using a distorted Eastern European tone evoking Carell’s Gru character of the Despicable Me series. It’s a role he seemed destined to play.
The Story: A Chronicle of Longing
The plot unfolds as follows: the count has been restlessly roaming the world in torment for 400 years after his transformation into a vampire, a consequence due to his blasphemous mourning over the death of his spouse Elisabeta (a first film part for Zoë Bleu, Rosanna Arquette’s child). the vampire has looked tirelessly for a female who would be the rebirth of his lost love. As ill fortune would have it, the fortunate female proves to be Mina (again played by Bleu), the reserved future wife of the count’s timid estate manager, Jonathan Harker (enacted by Ewens Abid), who just traveled to Dracula’s fortress to discuss his real estate holdings and the tiny painting of the lovely Mina attracted Dracula’s gaze.
Besson’s Direction and Comic Flair
Besson structures Dracula’s middle-section history of worldwide travels sporting extravagant attire with a sure hand, and he willingly includes providing funny bits with a distinctly Mel Brooks flavour – like the count’s repeated and futile attempts to commit suicide post-Elisabeta’s demise, in addition to farcical scenes that result after Dracula sprays himself with a specific fragrance during the 1700s in Florence, that renders him compelling to the opposite sex. Ridiculous and watchable.
Dracula can be streamed online beginning on the first of December and for physical purchase from December 22nd. It will be shown in Australian cinemas starting February 5, 2026.
