Dracula Review – Besson’s Passionate Revamp of the Classic Horror Story is Ridiculous but Engaging

Perhaps interest is limited for a fresh take of Dracula from Luc Besson, the filmmaker known for polished extravagance. However, it has to be said: 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. A few strange elements appear, including one shot that appears to show a territorial boundary between France and Romania.

Waltz as a Witty Yet Careworn Priest Tracking the Undead

Christoph Waltz plays a humorous yet burdened man of the church pursuing the undead – it feels natural for him to tackle this character previously – who ends up in Paris in 1889 during the centennial of the French Revolution. The same goes for the malevolent vampire count, enacted by the seasoned horror actor Caleb Landry Jones using a distorted Eastern European tone evoking Carell’s Gru character in the Despicable Me films. This character that he too was born to take on.

The Plot: A Tale of Love and Loss

The plot unfolds as follows: Dracula has traveled ceaselessly the world in sorrow for hundreds of years after his transformation into a vampire, a punishment for his faithless sorrow over the death of his spouse Elisabeta (an inaugural screen appearance for Zoë Bleu, daughter of Rosanna Arquette). The count has looked tirelessly for some woman who could be the return of his deceased partner. By cruel fate, the chosen woman turns out to be Mina (portrayed once more by Bleu), the demure fiancee of the count’s timid estate manager, Jonathan Harker (enacted by Ewens Abid), who just traveled to the vampire’s estate to negotiate his real estate holdings and the small picture of the winsome Mina caught the count’s hooded eye.

Besson’s Handling and Comic Flair

Besson organizes Dracula’s second-act backstory of global roaming in various outrageous costumes skillfully, and he doesn’t shy away from providing humorous scenes with a distinctly Mel Brooks flavour – like the count’s repeated and futile attempts to end his own life after Elisabeta’s death, along with comical sequences that occur when Dracula douses himself with a specific fragrance in historic Florence, which makes him compelling to the opposite sex. Outlandish but entertaining.

Dracula can be streamed online from 1 December and on DVD and Blu-ray from December 22nd. It will be shown in Australian cinemas from 5 February 2026.