Dracula Review – The French Director’s Passionate Revamp of the Timeless Gothic Tale is Absurd but Watchable

Perhaps interest is limited for an updated adaptation of Dracula from Luc Besson, the French maestro for polished extravagance. And yet, it has to be said: his lavishly upholstered vampire romance has ambition and panache – and in all its Hammer-y cheesiness, I might just favor to it to the recent, stately interpretation by Robert Eggers of Nosferatu. A few strange elements appear, such as a scene that appears to show a land border between France and Romania.

Christoph Waltz as a Witty Yet Careworn Priest Tracking the Undead

Christoph Waltz embodies a witty yet careworn man of the church pursuing the undead – I can’t believe he hasn’t played this character previously – who finds himself in Paris in 1889 to mark the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution. Likewise present is the evil Count Dracula, played by the body-horror veteran Caleb Landry Jones with a mangled central European accent similar to Carell’s Gru character in the Despicable Me films. This character that he too was born to take on.

The Story: A Saga of Heartbreak

Here’s the premise: the count has wandered endlessly the globe in sorrow over four centuries after his transformation into a vampire, a punishment for his faithless sorrow following the loss of his spouse Elisabeta (a first film part for Zoë Bleu, daughter of Rosanna Arquette). The count has sought relentlessly for some woman who would be the rebirth of his departed beloved. As ill fortune would have it, the chosen woman is revealed as Mina (also Bleu, of course), the reserved future wife of the count’s timid estate manager, Jonathan Harker (enacted by Ewens Abid), who lately visited to the count’s castle to negotiate his property portfolio and the small picture of the charming Mina drew the vampire’s attention.

Besson’s Handling and Humorous Style

Besson arranges Dracula’s middle-section history of international journeys in various outrageous costumes confidently, and he willingly includes providing some comedy moments in the style of Mel Brooks – such as the count’s repeated and futile attempts to end his own life post-Elisabeta’s demise, in addition to comical sequences that follow Dracula applies to himself using a particular scent in 18th-century Florence, that renders him compelling to the opposite sex. Absurd yet engaging.

Dracula can be streamed online starting December 1st and for physical purchase from December 22nd. It will be shown in Australian cinemas starting February 5, 2026.