Dracula Movie Critique – Besson’s Love-Struck Reimagining of the Classic Horror Story is Absurd but Entertaining

Perhaps audiences aren’t clamoring for a fresh take of Dracula from Luc Besson, the French maestro for stylish excess. And yet, it’s worth noting: his richly designed love story with vampires boasts bold vision and flair – and in all its Hammer-y cheesiness, it could be preferable over the recent, stately interpretation by Robert Eggers of Nosferatu. There are some very bizarre touches, like a particular moment that looks like it presents a territorial boundary between France and Romania.

The Veteran Actor as a Clever but Weary Vampire-Hunting Priest

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 finds himself in Paris in 1889 during the centennial of the French Revolution. So does the evil Count Dracula, enacted by the body-horror veteran Caleb Landry Jones with a mangled central European accent evoking Steve Carell’s Gru from the Despicable Me comedies. It’s a role he seemed destined to play.

The Plot: A Chronicle of Longing

The plot unfolds as follows: the count has been restlessly roaming the world in torment for hundreds of years after his transformation into a vampire, a punishment due to his blasphemous mourning after the passing of his beloved Elisabeta (an inaugural screen appearance for Zoë Bleu, Rosanna Arquette’s child). The count has been searching, searching, searching for a female who could be the rebirth of his deceased partner. As ill fortune would have it, the fortunate female proves to be Mina (again played by Bleu), the demure fiancee of Dracula’s wimpish land agent, Jonathan Harker (Ewens Abid), who just traveled to the count’s castle to review his land assets and whose miniature portrait of the winsome Mina caught the count’s hooded eye.

The Filmmaker’s Approach and Humorous Style

Besson structures Dracula’s second-act backstory of worldwide travels sporting extravagant attire confidently, and he willingly includes giving us funny bits with a distinctly Mel Brooks flavour – for example Dracula’s ongoing failed efforts to end his own life following Elisabeta’s passing, in addition to farcical scenes that result after Dracula applies to himself with a specific fragrance in 18th-century Florence, that renders him irresistible to women. Absurd yet engaging.

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