Dracula Review – Luc Besson’s Passionate Revamp of the Classic Horror Story is Outlandish but Watchable

Maybe interest is limited for a fresh take of Dracula from Luc Besson, the celebrated French director for glossiness and bloat. Still, one must admit: his richly designed love story with vampires boasts bold vision and flair – and amid its theatrical camp, I’m not sure I wouldn’t prefer compared with Eggers’s dignified recent take of Nosferatu. A few strange elements appear, including one shot that seems to depict a land border between France and Romania.

Waltz as a Humorously Exhausted Priest Tracking the Undead

Christoph Waltz embodies a humorous yet burdened cleric fighting vampires – it feels natural for him to tackle this role before – who finds himself in Paris in 1889 during the centennial of the French Revolution. So does the evil Count Dracula, brought to life by the expert in grotesque roles 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 Narrative: A Chronicle of Longing

The story is this: Dracula has been restlessly roaming the world in sorrow over four centuries after his transformation into a vampire, a consequence for his faithless sorrow over the death of his wife, Elisabeta (a first film part for Zoë Bleu, Rosanna Arquette’s child). Dracula has sought relentlessly for some woman who might be the rebirth of his deceased partner. As ill fortune would have it, the fortunate female is revealed as Mina (again played by Bleu), the reserved future wife of Dracula’s feeble property handler, Jonathan Harker (played by Ewens Abid), who just traveled to the count’s castle to review his real estate holdings and whose miniature portrait of the winsome Mina drew the vampire’s attention.

Besson’s Handling and Humorous Style

Besson structures Dracula’s second-act backstory of global roaming wearing flamboyant outfits confidently, and he doesn’t shy away from providing humorous scenes with a distinctly Mel Brooks flavour – for example Dracula’s ongoing failed efforts to kill himself following Elisabeta’s passing, along with comical sequences that occur when Dracula douses himself using a particular scent in historic Florence, which causes him to be compelling to the opposite sex. Absurd yet engaging.

Dracula is on digital platforms beginning on the first of December and in disc format from 22 December. It screens in Australian cinemas from 5 February 2026.