Dracula Review – Besson’s Passionate Reimagining of the Timeless Gothic Tale is Ridiculous but Watchable

Maybe interest is limited for a fresh take of Dracula from Luc Besson, the celebrated French director for polished extravagance. However, one must admit: his richly designed romantic vampire tale displays creativity and style – and in all its Hammer-y cheesiness, I’m not sure I wouldn’t prefer to it to Eggers’s dignified recent take of Nosferatu. Odd details emerge, like a particular moment that seems to depict a territorial boundary between France and Romania.

Waltz as a Witty Yet Careworn Vampire-Hunting Priest

Christoph Waltz portrays a clever but beleaguered cleric fighting vampires – I can’t believe he hasn’t played this character previously – who arrives in Paris in 1889 for the French Revolution centenary celebrations. So does the sinister Dracula, played by the body-horror veteran Caleb Landry Jones using a distorted Eastern European tone evoking the voice of Gru by Steve Carell in the Despicable Me films. It’s a role suits him perfectly.

The Narrative: A Chronicle of Longing

The plot unfolds as follows: Dracula has traveled ceaselessly the globe in anguish for hundreds of years since he became undead, a penalty for his faithless sorrow over the death of his wife, Elisabeta (an inaugural screen appearance for Zoë Bleu, Rosanna Arquette’s child). Dracula has sought relentlessly for a female who would be the rebirth of his departed beloved. As ill fortune would have it, the chosen woman proves to be Mina (again played by Bleu), the reserved future wife of Dracula’s feeble property handler, Jonathan Harker (enacted by Ewens Abid), who has recently been to Dracula’s fortress to negotiate his land assets and the small picture of the charming Mina attracted Dracula’s gaze.

The Filmmaker’s Approach and Comic Flair

Besson structures Dracula’s second-act backstory of worldwide travels sporting extravagant attire confidently, and he is not above offering funny bits reminiscent of Mel Brooks – for example Dracula’s ongoing failed efforts to end his own life following Elisabeta’s passing, along with farcical scenes that follow Dracula douses himself in a certain perfume in 18th-century Florence, which makes him unavoidably attractive to females. Outlandish but entertaining.

Dracula is on digital platforms beginning on the first of December and in disc format from 22 December. It plays in Australian cinemas beginning on the fifth of February, 2026.