Dracula Review – Besson’s Romantic Reimagining of the Timeless Gothic Tale is Absurd but Entertaining

Maybe there is no great enthusiasm for a fresh take of Dracula from Luc Besson, the French maestro for polished extravagance. However, it has to be said: his opulently crafted romantic vampire tale displays creativity and style – and amid its theatrical camp, it could be preferable to it to Robert Eggers’s recent, solemnly classy version of Nosferatu. There are some very bizarre touches, including one shot that appears to show a geographic divide between France and Romania.

Waltz as a Humorously Exhausted Vampire-Hunting Priest

Christoph Waltz plays a clever but beleaguered vampire-hunting priest – it feels natural for him to tackle this character previously – who arrives in Paris in 1889 for the French Revolution centenary celebrations. The same goes for the sinister Dracula, enacted by the body-horror veteran Caleb Landry Jones speaking in a twisted regional dialect evoking Steve Carell’s Gru from the Despicable Me comedies. It’s a role that he too was born to take on.

The Story: A Saga of Heartbreak

The story is this: the count has been restlessly roaming the earth in torment for 400 years after his transformation into a vampire, a penalty for his faithless sorrow after the passing of his beloved Elisabeta (a first film part for Zoë Bleu, the offspring of Rosanna Arquette). Dracula has been searching, searching, searching for a female who would be the reincarnation of his departed beloved. Unfortunately, the lucky lady turns out to be Mina (portrayed once more by Bleu), the reserved future wife of the count’s timid estate manager, Jonathan Harker (played by Ewens Abid), who just traveled to Dracula’s fortress to review his land assets and whose miniature portrait of the winsome Mina caught the count’s hooded eye.

Besson’s Handling and Humorous Style

Besson arranges Dracula’s middle-section history of worldwide travels in various outrageous costumes skillfully, and he is not above giving us some comedy moments reminiscent of Mel Brooks – like the vampire’s constant unsuccessful tries to kill himself post-Elisabeta’s demise, in addition to absurd moments that follow Dracula sprays himself in a certain perfume in historic Florence, that renders him unavoidably attractive to females. Outlandish but entertaining.

Dracula is on digital platforms from 1 December and for physical purchase from 22 December. It screens in Australian cinemas beginning on the fifth of February, 2026.