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

It’s possible interest is limited for a new version of Dracula from Luc Besson, the French maestro for glossiness and bloat. Still, it’s worth noting: his lavishly upholstered love story with vampires has ambition and panache – and amid its theatrical camp, I might just favor to it to the recent, stately interpretation by Robert Eggers of Nosferatu. Odd details emerge, such as a scene that appears to show a territorial boundary between France and Romania.

The Veteran Actor as a Humorously Exhausted Priest Tracking the Undead

Christoph Waltz embodies a clever but beleaguered cleric fighting vampires – it’s surprising he never took on this character previously – who arrives in Paris in 1889 for the French Revolution centenary celebrations. So does the malevolent vampire count, enacted by the seasoned horror actor Caleb Landry Jones with a mangled central European accent similar to the voice of Gru by Steve Carell in the Despicable Me films. It’s a role that he too was born to take on.

The Story: A Chronicle of Longing

The story is this: the vampire lord has wandered endlessly the earth in torment for hundreds of years since he became undead, a penalty for his irreligious grief following the loss of his beloved Elisabeta (a movie debut role for Zoë Bleu, Rosanna Arquette’s child). Dracula has sought relentlessly for a female who might be the rebirth of his deceased partner. By cruel fate, the chosen woman is revealed as Mina (portrayed once more by Bleu), the reserved future wife of the count’s timid estate manager, Jonathan Harker (Ewens Abid), who has recently been to the count’s castle to negotiate his property portfolio and whose miniature portrait of the charming Mina drew the vampire’s attention.

The Filmmaker’s Approach and Humorous Style

Besson arranges Dracula’s middle-section history of worldwide travels sporting extravagant attire confidently, and he doesn’t shy away from providing some comedy moments with a distinctly Mel Brooks flavour – for example the vampire’s constant unsuccessful tries to end his own life following Elisabeta’s passing, along with farcical scenes that result after Dracula sprays himself using a particular scent in 18th-century Florence, which causes him to be unavoidably attractive to females. Absurd yet engaging.

Dracula can be streamed online from 1 December and for physical purchase from 22 December. It plays in Australian cinemas from 5 February 2026.