Dracula Review – The French Director’s Passionate Reimagining of the Gothic Classic is Outlandish but Engaging

It’s possible interest is limited for a fresh take of Dracula from Luc Besson, the celebrated French director for polished extravagance. However, it has to be said: his richly designed love story with vampires boasts bold vision and flair – and in all its Hammer-y cheesiness, I’m not sure I wouldn’t prefer to it to Robert Eggers’s recent, solemnly classy version of Nosferatu. There are some very bizarre touches, such as a scene that seems to depict a geographic divide between France and Romania.

The Veteran Actor 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 for the French Revolution centenary celebrations. Likewise present is the malevolent vampire count, enacted by the body-horror veteran Caleb Landry Jones speaking in a twisted regional dialect similar to Steve Carell’s Gru from the Despicable Me comedies. This character he seemed destined to play.

The Narrative: A Tale of Love and Loss

The story is this: Dracula has wandered endlessly the earth in torment for 400 years since he became undead, a consequence due to his blasphemous mourning over the death of his wife, Elisabeta (a movie debut role for Zoë Bleu, daughter of Rosanna Arquette). Dracula has sought relentlessly for some woman who could be the rebirth of his lost love. By cruel fate, the chosen woman is revealed as Mina (again played by Bleu), the reserved future wife of Dracula’s wimpish land agent, Jonathan Harker (enacted by Ewens Abid), who lately visited to the vampire’s estate to negotiate his property portfolio and the small picture of the charming Mina caught the count’s hooded eye.

Besson’s Handling and Comic Flair

Besson structures Dracula’s second-act backstory of worldwide travels in various outrageous costumes confidently, and he willingly includes offering funny bits with a distinctly Mel Brooks flavour – like the vampire’s constant unsuccessful tries to kill himself after Elisabeta’s death, along with farcical scenes that follow Dracula applies to himself in a certain perfume during the 1700s in Florence, that renders him compelling to the opposite sex. Ridiculous and watchable.

Dracula is on digital platforms starting December 1st and on DVD and Blu-ray from December 22nd. It will be shown in Australian cinemas starting February 5, 2026.