Dracula Review – Luc Besson’s Passionate Revamp of the Gothic Classic is Outlandish but Entertaining

Maybe audiences aren’t clamoring for a fresh take of Dracula from Luc Besson, the filmmaker known for polished extravagance. Still, it’s worth noting: his richly designed love story with vampires displays creativity and style – and in all its Hammer-y cheesiness, I might just favor to it to Eggers’s dignified recent take of Nosferatu. A few strange elements appear, such as a scene that seems to depict a territorial boundary between France and Romania.

Waltz as a Clever but Weary Clergyman Hunting Vampires

Christoph Waltz plays a clever but beleaguered cleric fighting vampires – it feels natural for him to tackle this character previously – who arrives in Paris in 1889 during the centennial of the French Revolution. The same goes for the evil Count Dracula, enacted by the seasoned horror actor Caleb Landry Jones using a distorted Eastern European tone evoking Steve Carell’s Gru from the Despicable Me comedies. This is a part suits him perfectly.

The Narrative: A Saga of Heartbreak

Here’s the premise: the vampire lord has been restlessly roaming the earth in torment over four centuries following his rise as one of the undead, a punishment for his irreligious grief following the loss of his spouse Elisabeta (a first film part for Zoë Bleu, Rosanna Arquette’s child). the vampire has been searching, searching, searching for some woman who could be the return of his deceased partner. As ill fortune would have it, the fortunate female is revealed as Mina (also Bleu, of course), the reserved future wife of Dracula’s feeble property handler, Jonathan Harker (played by Ewens Abid), who lately visited to the count’s castle to discuss his real estate holdings and whose miniature portrait of the winsome Mina caught the count’s hooded eye.

The Filmmaker’s Approach and Humorous Style

Besson organizes Dracula’s second-act backstory of international journeys in various outrageous costumes skillfully, and he doesn’t shy away from providing some comedy moments reminiscent of Mel Brooks – like the count’s repeated and futile attempts to commit suicide following Elisabeta’s passing, along with comical sequences that result after Dracula sprays himself using a particular scent in 18th-century Florence, that renders him unavoidably attractive to females. Outlandish but entertaining.

Dracula can be streamed online starting December 1st and in disc format from December 22nd. It will be shown in Australian cinemas beginning on the fifth of February, 2026.