Dracula Review – Besson’s Love-Struck Reinterpretation of the Gothic Classic is Outlandish but Watchable

Maybe there is no great enthusiasm for an updated adaptation of Dracula from Luc Besson, the French maestro for glossiness and bloat. And yet, one must admit: his richly designed love story with vampires boasts bold vision and flair – and in all its Hammer-y cheesiness, it could be preferable over Robert Eggers’s recent, solemnly classy version of Nosferatu. Odd details emerge, such as a scene that appears to show a territorial boundary between France and Romania.

Waltz as a Humorously Exhausted Priest Tracking the Undead

Christoph Waltz plays a witty yet careworn vampire-hunting priest – I can’t believe he hasn’t played this role before – who arrives in Paris in 1889 for the French Revolution centenary celebrations. The same goes for the sinister Dracula, enacted by the body-horror veteran Caleb Landry Jones with a mangled central European accent reminiscent of Steve Carell’s Gru in the Despicable Me films. This is a part he seemed destined to play.

The Plot: A Tale of Love and Loss

The plot unfolds as follows: Dracula has wandered endlessly the world in sorrow for hundreds of years after his transformation into a vampire, a consequence for his irreligious grief over the death of his spouse Elisabeta (an inaugural screen appearance for Zoë Bleu, daughter of Rosanna Arquette). Dracula has been searching, searching, searching for a female who might be the reincarnation of his lost love. By cruel fate, the fortunate female is revealed as Mina (again played by Bleu), the modest betrothed 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 whose miniature portrait of the winsome Mina drew the vampire’s attention.

The Filmmaker’s Approach and Comic Flair

Besson arranges Dracula’s middle-section history of worldwide travels wearing flamboyant outfits with a sure hand, and he willingly includes giving us humorous scenes with a distinctly Mel Brooks flavour – such as Dracula’s ongoing failed efforts to end his own life following Elisabeta’s passing, in addition to absurd moments that result after Dracula applies to himself in a certain perfume in 18th-century Florence, which makes him unavoidably attractive to females. Outlandish but entertaining.

Dracula is available digitally starting December 1st and for physical purchase from December 22nd. It screens in Australian cinemas beginning on the fifth of February, 2026.