Dracula Movie Critique – The French Director’s Romantic Reinterpretation of the Gothic Classic is Outlandish but Entertaining

Maybe audiences aren’t clamoring for a fresh take of Dracula from Luc Besson, the celebrated French director for stylish excess. However, it has to be said: his richly designed vampire romance displays creativity and style – and with its B-movie charm, I’m not sure I wouldn’t prefer to it to Robert Eggers’s recent, solemnly classy version of Nosferatu. A few strange elements appear, like a particular moment that appears to show a geographic divide between France and Romania.

Christoph Waltz as a Clever but Weary Vampire-Hunting Priest

Christoph Waltz plays a witty yet careworn cleric fighting vampires – it’s surprising he never took on this role before – who finds himself in Paris in 1889 to mark the 100th anniversary 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 the voice of Gru by Steve Carell in the Despicable Me films. This is a part he seemed destined to play.

The Plot: A Saga of Heartbreak

Here’s the premise: the vampire lord has wandered endlessly the globe in anguish over four centuries after his transformation into a vampire, a penalty for his irreligious grief after the passing of his wife, Elisabeta (an inaugural screen appearance for Zoë Bleu, the offspring of Rosanna Arquette). Dracula has been searching, searching, searching for a female who could be the reincarnation of his deceased partner. Unfortunately, the lucky lady 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 vampire’s estate to discuss his property portfolio and the tiny painting of the winsome Mina caught the count’s hooded eye.

Besson’s Handling and Humorous Style

Besson structures Dracula’s middle-section history of global roaming in various outrageous costumes with a sure hand, and he is not above offering some comedy moments with a distinctly Mel Brooks flavour – for example the count’s repeated and futile attempts to end his own life after Elisabeta’s death, as well as comical sequences that result after Dracula douses himself using a particular scent in historic Florence, which makes him irresistible to women. Absurd yet engaging.

Dracula can be streamed online beginning on the first of December and on DVD and Blu-ray starting the twenty-second of December. It plays in Australian cinemas starting February 5, 2026.