Dracula Review – The French Director’s Romantic Reinterpretation of the Classic Horror Story is Outlandish but Watchable
It’s possible audiences aren’t clamoring for a new version of Dracula from Luc Besson, the filmmaker known for stylish excess. However, it’s worth noting: his richly designed love story with vampires boasts bold vision and flair – and amid its theatrical camp, I might just favor compared with the recent, stately interpretation by Robert Eggers of Nosferatu. Odd details emerge, such as a scene that looks like it presents a territorial boundary between France and Romania.
Christoph Waltz as a Clever but Weary Priest Tracking the Undead
Christoph Waltz plays a witty yet careworn man of the church pursuing the undead – it’s surprising he never took on such a part earlier – who arrives in Paris in 1889 to mark the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution. The same goes for the sinister Dracula, played by the expert in grotesque roles Caleb Landry Jones speaking in a twisted regional dialect similar to Carell’s Gru character in the Despicable Me films. It’s a role suits him perfectly.
The Plot: A Chronicle of Longing
The story is this: the count has wandered endlessly the earth in sorrow for 400 years since he became undead, a punishment for his irreligious grief over the death of his spouse Elisabeta (a first film part for Zoë Bleu, Rosanna Arquette’s child). the vampire has looked tirelessly for some woman who might be the rebirth of his deceased partner. As ill fortune would have it, the chosen woman turns out to be Mina (again played by Bleu), the reserved future wife of Dracula’s wimpish land agent, Jonathan Harker (played by Ewens Abid), who lately visited to the vampire’s estate to review his property portfolio and whose miniature portrait of the charming Mina caught the count’s hooded eye.
Besson’s Handling and Comic Flair
Besson structures Dracula’s middle-section history of global roaming sporting extravagant attire skillfully, and he is not above giving us funny bits in the style of Mel Brooks – for example the count’s repeated and futile attempts to kill himself following Elisabeta’s passing, along with farcical scenes that occur when Dracula applies to himself with a specific fragrance in 18th-century Florence, which makes him irresistible to women. Ridiculous and watchable.
Dracula is available digitally from 1 December and in disc format from 22 December. It screens in Australian cinemas starting February 5, 2026.
