Dracula Review – Besson’s Passionate Reimagining of the Classic Horror Story is Absurd but Watchable

Maybe interest is limited for an updated adaptation of Dracula from Luc Besson, the French maestro for stylish excess. And yet, it has to be said: his opulently crafted love story with vampires has ambition and panache – and with its B-movie charm, I might just favor to it to Eggers’s dignified recent take of Nosferatu. Odd details emerge, such as a scene that seems to depict a geographic divide between France and Romania.

Christoph Waltz as a Witty Yet Careworn Vampire-Hunting Priest

Christoph Waltz portrays a witty yet careworn cleric fighting vampires – I can’t believe he hasn’t played this character previously – who ends up in Paris in 1889 during the centennial of the French Revolution. Likewise present is the evil Count Dracula, enacted by the body-horror veteran Caleb Landry Jones with a mangled central European accent evoking Steve Carell’s Gru in the Despicable Me films. It’s a role suits him perfectly.

The Story: A Chronicle of Longing

The plot unfolds as follows: the vampire lord has traveled ceaselessly the world in sorrow for hundreds of years after his transformation into a vampire, a consequence for his faithless sorrow over the death of his spouse Elisabeta (an inaugural screen appearance for Zoë Bleu, Rosanna Arquette’s child). Dracula has been searching, searching, searching for some woman who could be the return of his lost love. Unfortunately, the chosen woman turns out to be Mina (also Bleu, of course), the modest betrothed of Dracula’s feeble property handler, Jonathan Harker (Ewens Abid), who just traveled to Dracula’s fortress to review his property portfolio and whose miniature portrait of the winsome Mina drew the vampire’s attention.

The Filmmaker’s Approach and Lighthearted Touch

Besson organizes Dracula’s middle-section history of international journeys sporting extravagant attire with a sure hand, and he doesn’t shy away from giving us humorous scenes with a distinctly Mel Brooks flavour – like the count’s repeated and futile attempts to end his own life following Elisabeta’s passing, in addition to absurd moments that result after Dracula sprays himself with a specific fragrance in 18th-century Florence, that renders him compelling to the opposite sex. Absurd yet engaging.

Dracula is available digitally starting December 1st and on DVD and Blu-ray from 22 December. It screens in Australian cinemas beginning on the fifth of February, 2026.