Dracula Review – Luc Besson’s Love-Struck Reinterpretation of the Classic Horror Story is Absurd but Entertaining

It’s possible audiences aren’t clamoring for an updated adaptation of Dracula from Luc Besson, the French maestro for stylish excess. However, one must admit: his lavishly upholstered vampire romance boasts bold vision and flair – and with its B-movie charm, I’m not sure I wouldn’t prefer to it to the recent, stately interpretation by Robert Eggers of Nosferatu. There are some very bizarre touches, like a particular moment that appears to show a territorial boundary between France and Romania.

Christoph Waltz as a Humorously Exhausted Vampire-Hunting Priest

Christoph Waltz plays a clever but beleaguered vampire-hunting priest – it’s surprising he never took on this character previously – who arrives in Paris in 1889 for the French Revolution centenary celebrations. The same goes for the evil Count Dracula, enacted by the expert in grotesque roles Caleb Landry Jones speaking in a twisted regional dialect reminiscent of Steve Carell’s Gru of the Despicable Me series. It’s a role that he too was born to take on.

The Story: A Chronicle of Longing

Here’s the premise: the count has wandered endlessly the world in anguish for hundreds of years since he became undead, a consequence due to his blasphemous mourning over the death of his beloved Elisabeta (a first film part for Zoë Bleu, the offspring of Rosanna Arquette). Dracula has looked tirelessly for a lady who could be the rebirth of his lost love. As ill fortune would have it, the fortunate female turns out to be Mina (also Bleu, of course), the demure fiancee of the count’s timid estate manager, Jonathan Harker (enacted by Ewens Abid), who lately visited to the vampire’s estate to discuss his real estate holdings and whose miniature portrait of the winsome Mina caught the count’s hooded eye.

The Filmmaker’s Approach and Comic Flair

Besson arranges Dracula’s flashback sequence of international journeys sporting extravagant attire with a sure hand, and he doesn’t shy away from providing some comedy moments in the style of Mel Brooks – for example the vampire’s constant unsuccessful tries to kill himself following Elisabeta’s passing, as well as farcical scenes that result after Dracula applies to himself using a particular scent in historic Florence, which causes him to be irresistible to women. Ridiculous and watchable.

Dracula is on digital platforms from 1 December and on DVD and Blu-ray starting the twenty-second of December. It screens in Australian cinemas from 5 February 2026.