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

Perhaps there is no great enthusiasm for a new version of Dracula from Luc Besson, the French maestro for glossiness and bloat. However, it’s worth noting: his opulently crafted love story with vampires displays creativity and style – and amid its theatrical camp, I might just favor over Robert Eggers’s recent, solemnly classy version of Nosferatu. Odd details emerge, including one shot that looks like it presents a land border between France and Romania.

Waltz as a Clever but Weary Priest Tracking the Undead

Christoph Waltz embodies a witty yet careworn cleric fighting vampires – it feels natural for him to tackle this character previously – who finds himself in Paris in 1889 during the centennial of the French Revolution. So does the sinister Dracula, brought to life by the expert in grotesque roles Caleb Landry Jones using a distorted Eastern European tone reminiscent of Steve Carell’s Gru in the Despicable Me films. It’s a role suits him perfectly.

The Story: A Saga of Heartbreak

Here’s the premise: Dracula has traveled ceaselessly the earth in sorrow for 400 years after his transformation into a vampire, a punishment for his irreligious grief following the loss of his wife, Elisabeta (an inaugural screen appearance for Zoë Bleu, Rosanna Arquette’s child). the vampire has been searching, searching, searching for some woman who might be the reincarnation of his deceased partner. As ill fortune would have it, the fortunate female turns out to be Mina (again played by Bleu), the demure fiancee of the count’s timid estate manager, Jonathan Harker (enacted by Ewens Abid), who lately visited to the count’s castle to review his property portfolio and whose miniature portrait of the lovely Mina caught the count’s hooded eye.

Besson’s Handling and Humorous Style

Besson organizes Dracula’s middle-section history of global roaming in various outrageous costumes skillfully, and he doesn’t shy away from offering funny bits with a distinctly Mel Brooks flavour – like Dracula’s ongoing failed efforts to kill himself after Elisabeta’s death, along with comical sequences that result after Dracula applies to himself with a specific fragrance in 18th-century Florence, that renders him compelling to the opposite sex. Absurd yet engaging.

Dracula is available digitally starting December 1st and in disc format starting the twenty-second of December. It screens in Australian cinemas from 5 February 2026.