Dracula Movie Critique – The French Director’s Love-Struck Revamp of the Gothic Classic is Absurd but Watchable

Maybe interest is limited for a fresh take of Dracula from Luc Besson, the filmmaker known for stylish excess. However, one must admit: his lavishly upholstered love story with vampires has ambition and panache – and amid its theatrical camp, I might just favor over Eggers’s dignified recent take of Nosferatu. Odd details emerge, like a particular moment that appears to show a geographic divide between France and Romania.

Waltz as a Clever but Weary Clergyman Hunting Vampires

Christoph Waltz embodies a clever but beleaguered man of the church pursuing the undead – I can’t believe he hasn’t played this role before – who finds himself in Paris in 1889 to mark the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution. Likewise present is the sinister Dracula, enacted by the seasoned horror actor Caleb Landry Jones with a mangled central European accent similar to Steve Carell’s Gru from the Despicable Me comedies. This character that he too was born to take on.

The Narrative: A Tale of Love and Loss

Here’s the premise: the count has wandered endlessly the globe in anguish for hundreds of years since he became undead, a punishment for his faithless sorrow over the death of his wife, Elisabeta (a movie debut role for Zoë Bleu, Rosanna Arquette’s child). The count has been searching, searching, searching for a lady who could be the return of his lost love. As ill fortune would have it, the chosen woman is revealed as Mina (again played by Bleu), the demure fiancee of Dracula’s feeble property handler, Jonathan Harker (enacted by Ewens Abid), who has recently been to the count’s castle to negotiate his property portfolio and the tiny painting of the charming Mina drew the vampire’s attention.

Besson’s Direction and Humorous Style

Besson arranges Dracula’s second-act backstory of international journeys in various outrageous costumes with a sure hand, and he willingly includes offering humorous scenes in the style of Mel Brooks – such as the count’s repeated and futile attempts to end his own life after Elisabeta’s death, as well as farcical scenes that follow Dracula sprays himself using a particular scent in historic Florence, that renders him unavoidably attractive to females. Absurd yet engaging.

Dracula can be streamed online starting December 1st and on DVD and Blu-ray starting the twenty-second of December. It will be shown in Australian cinemas beginning on the fifth of February, 2026.