Dracula Review – Luc Besson’s Love-Struck Revamp of the Gothic Classic is Outlandish but Entertaining

It’s possible there is no great enthusiasm for a new version of Dracula from Luc Besson, the French maestro for stylish excess. And yet, one must admit: his opulently crafted love story with vampires has ambition and panache – and with its B-movie charm, it could be preferable to it to Robert Eggers’s recent, solemnly classy version of Nosferatu. Odd details emerge, such as a scene that looks like it presents a geographic divide between France and Romania.

Christoph Waltz as a Clever but Weary Vampire-Hunting Priest

Christoph Waltz embodies a witty yet careworn vampire-hunting priest – it feels natural for him to tackle this character previously – who arrives in Paris in 1889 during the centennial of the French Revolution. The same goes for the malevolent vampire count, enacted by the expert in grotesque roles Caleb Landry Jones with a mangled central European accent evoking Carell’s Gru character of the Despicable Me series. This character he seemed destined to play.

The Story: A Chronicle of Longing

The story is this: the vampire lord has wandered endlessly the globe in torment for 400 years following his rise as one of the undead, a punishment for his faithless sorrow over the death of his spouse Elisabeta (a first film part for Zoë Bleu, the offspring of Rosanna Arquette). Dracula has been searching, searching, searching for some woman who might be the rebirth of his departed beloved. As ill fortune would have it, the lucky lady is revealed as Mina (portrayed once more by Bleu), the reserved future wife of the count’s timid estate manager, Jonathan Harker (enacted by Ewens Abid), who lately visited to the count’s castle to discuss his property portfolio and the small picture of the winsome Mina caught the count’s hooded eye.

The Filmmaker’s Approach and Comic Flair

Besson structures Dracula’s middle-section history of worldwide travels wearing flamboyant outfits with a sure hand, and he willingly includes offering humorous scenes in the style of Mel Brooks – for example Dracula’s ongoing failed efforts to end his own life after Elisabeta’s death, as well as farcical scenes that occur when Dracula sprays himself with a specific fragrance in 18th-century Florence, that renders him irresistible to women. Outlandish but entertaining.

Dracula can be streamed online starting December 1st and for physical purchase from 22 December. It screens in Australian cinemas beginning on the fifth of February, 2026.