Dracula Review – The French Director’s Romantic Reinterpretation of the Classic Horror Story is Outlandish but Entertaining
It’s possible audiences aren’t clamoring for an updated adaptation of Dracula from Luc Besson, the French maestro for glossiness and bloat. Still, one must admit: his lavishly upholstered romantic vampire tale boasts bold vision and flair – and amid its theatrical camp, I might just favor to it to Robert Eggers’s recent, solemnly classy version of Nosferatu. A few strange elements appear, including one shot that looks like it presents a territorial boundary between France and Romania.
Waltz as a Witty Yet Careworn Vampire-Hunting Priest
Christoph Waltz portrays a witty yet careworn vampire-hunting priest – I can’t believe he hasn’t played this character previously – who ends up in Paris in 1889 to mark the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution. Likewise present is the sinister Dracula, played by the body-horror veteran Caleb Landry Jones speaking in a twisted regional dialect evoking Carell’s Gru character of the Despicable Me series. This is a part suits him perfectly.
The Plot: A Chronicle of Longing
The story is this: the vampire lord has traveled ceaselessly the earth in sorrow for 400 years following his rise as one of the undead, a consequence for his irreligious grief after the passing of his spouse Elisabeta (a first film part for Zoë Bleu, Rosanna Arquette’s child). Dracula has been searching, searching, searching for a female who would be the reincarnation of his deceased partner. As ill fortune would have it, the fortunate female turns out to be Mina (also Bleu, of course), the modest betrothed of the count’s timid estate manager, Jonathan Harker (enacted by Ewens Abid), who has recently been to the count’s castle to review his real estate holdings and whose miniature portrait of the lovely Mina drew the vampire’s attention.
The Filmmaker’s Approach and Comic Flair
Besson structures Dracula’s middle-section history of worldwide travels wearing flamboyant outfits with a sure hand, and he doesn’t shy away from providing humorous scenes with a distinctly Mel Brooks flavour – for example Dracula’s ongoing failed efforts to commit suicide following Elisabeta’s passing, in addition to farcical scenes that occur when Dracula douses himself in a certain perfume in 18th-century Florence, which makes him irresistible to women. Ridiculous and watchable.
Dracula can be streamed online from 1 December and for physical purchase from December 22nd. It screens in Australian cinemas from 5 February 2026.