Dracula Review – The French Director’s Romantic Revamp of the Gothic Classic is Outlandish but Entertaining

Maybe interest is limited for a fresh take of Dracula from Luc Besson, the French maestro for glossiness and bloat. However, one must admit: his opulently crafted love story with vampires displays creativity and style – and amid its theatrical camp, I might just favor to it to Eggers’s dignified recent take of Nosferatu. A few strange elements appear, including one shot that appears to show a territorial boundary between France and Romania.

Christoph Waltz as a Witty Yet Careworn Clergyman Hunting Vampires

Christoph Waltz embodies a humorous yet burdened vampire-hunting priest – I can’t believe he hasn’t played this role before – who arrives in Paris in 1889 for the French Revolution centenary celebrations. The same goes for the sinister Dracula, brought to life by the body-horror veteran Caleb Landry Jones speaking in a twisted regional dialect similar to Carell’s Gru character from the Despicable Me comedies. This character suits him perfectly.

The Plot: A Chronicle of Longing

The plot unfolds as follows: the vampire lord has traveled ceaselessly the world in sorrow for 400 years after his transformation into a vampire, a penalty for his irreligious grief following the loss of his beloved Elisabeta (an inaugural screen appearance for Zoë Bleu, the offspring of Rosanna Arquette). The count has been searching, searching, searching for some woman who would be the rebirth of his lost love. By cruel fate, the lucky lady is revealed as Mina (also Bleu, of course), the modest betrothed of Dracula’s feeble property handler, Jonathan Harker (Ewens Abid), who lately visited to the vampire’s estate to negotiate his real estate holdings and the small picture of the lovely Mina caught the count’s hooded eye.

The Filmmaker’s Approach and Humorous Style

Besson organizes Dracula’s flashback sequence of global roaming sporting extravagant attire confidently, and he doesn’t shy away from giving us humorous scenes in the style of Mel Brooks – like the count’s repeated and futile attempts to kill himself following Elisabeta’s passing, in addition to absurd moments that result after Dracula applies to himself using a particular scent during the 1700s in Florence, that renders him compelling to the opposite sex. Absurd yet engaging.

Dracula can be streamed online beginning on the first of December and in disc format from December 22nd. It screens in Australian cinemas beginning on the fifth of February, 2026.