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

Perhaps interest is limited for an updated adaptation of Dracula from Luc Besson, the filmmaker known for glossiness and bloat. Still, it has to be said: his lavishly upholstered love story with vampires has ambition and panache – and in all its Hammer-y cheesiness, I might just favor to it to Robert Eggers’s recent, solemnly classy version of Nosferatu. A few strange elements appear, like a particular moment that seems to depict a territorial boundary between France and Romania.

The Veteran Actor as a Humorously Exhausted Priest Tracking the Undead

Christoph Waltz embodies a witty yet careworn vampire-hunting priest – I can’t believe he hasn’t played this role before – who ends up in Paris in 1889 for the French Revolution centenary celebrations. The same goes for the malevolent vampire count, brought to life by the expert in grotesque roles Caleb Landry Jones using a distorted Eastern European tone evoking Carell’s Gru character from the Despicable Me comedies. This is a part he seemed destined to play.

The Narrative: A Tale of Love and Loss

The plot unfolds as follows: Dracula has wandered endlessly the world in sorrow for hundreds of years following his rise as one of the undead, a punishment for his irreligious grief over the death of his spouse Elisabeta (a first film part for Zoë Bleu, Rosanna Arquette’s child). The count has been searching, searching, searching for a female who would be the return of his departed beloved. As ill fortune would have it, the lucky lady is revealed as Mina (again played by Bleu), the demure fiancee of Dracula’s feeble property handler, Jonathan Harker (played by Ewens Abid), who just traveled to the vampire’s estate to negotiate his property portfolio and the small picture of the charming Mina drew the vampire’s attention.

Besson’s Handling and Lighthearted Touch

Besson arranges Dracula’s middle-section history of global roaming wearing flamboyant outfits with a sure hand, and he is not above giving us humorous scenes with a distinctly Mel Brooks flavour – for example the count’s repeated and futile attempts to kill himself post-Elisabeta’s demise, along with comical sequences that result after Dracula applies to himself using a particular scent in historic Florence, that renders him compelling to the opposite sex. Absurd yet engaging.

Dracula is available digitally from 1 December and on DVD and Blu-ray from December 22nd. It screens in Australian cinemas starting February 5, 2026.