Dracula Movie Critique – Luc Besson’s Romantic Revamp of the Gothic Classic is Absurd but Watchable

Perhaps audiences aren’t clamoring for an updated adaptation of Dracula from Luc Besson, the filmmaker known for stylish excess. However, it has to be said: his richly designed vampire romance displays creativity and style – and in all its Hammer-y cheesiness, it could be preferable over Robert Eggers’s recent, solemnly classy version of Nosferatu. Odd details emerge, such as a scene that seems to depict a land border between France and Romania.

Christoph Waltz as a Humorously Exhausted Clergyman Hunting Vampires

Christoph Waltz plays a clever but beleaguered vampire-hunting priest – I can’t believe he hasn’t played this role before – who arrives in Paris in 1889 for the French Revolution centenary celebrations. The same goes for the evil Count Dracula, played by the body-horror veteran Caleb Landry Jones using a distorted Eastern European tone evoking Steve Carell’s Gru of the Despicable Me series. This character he seemed destined to play.

The Story: A Chronicle of Longing

Here’s the premise: Dracula has wandered endlessly the earth in anguish over four centuries after his transformation into a vampire, a punishment for his irreligious grief over the death of his beloved Elisabeta (an inaugural screen appearance for Zoë Bleu, the offspring of Rosanna Arquette). The count has been searching, searching, searching for some woman who would be the reincarnation of his departed beloved. Unfortunately, the fortunate female turns out to be Mina (portrayed once more by Bleu), the demure fiancee of Dracula’s wimpish land agent, Jonathan Harker (Ewens Abid), who lately visited to Dracula’s fortress to negotiate his property portfolio and whose miniature portrait of the charming Mina attracted Dracula’s gaze.

Besson’s Handling and Comic Flair

Besson arranges Dracula’s middle-section history of international journeys wearing flamboyant outfits skillfully, and he is not above giving us some comedy moments with a distinctly Mel Brooks flavour – for example Dracula’s ongoing failed efforts to end his own life after Elisabeta’s death, in addition to comical sequences that occur when Dracula applies to himself with a specific fragrance in historic Florence, that renders him unavoidably attractive to females. Ridiculous and watchable.

Dracula is on digital platforms beginning on the first of December and for physical purchase from December 22nd. It screens in Australian cinemas beginning on the fifth of February, 2026.