Dracula Review – The French Director’s Love-Struck Reimagining of the Classic Horror Story is Outlandish but Engaging

It’s possible audiences aren’t clamoring for an updated adaptation of Dracula from Luc Besson, the celebrated French director for polished extravagance. However, it has to be said: his lavishly upholstered vampire romance has ambition and panache – and with its B-movie charm, I might just favor to it to Eggers’s dignified recent take of Nosferatu. There are some very bizarre touches, including one shot that looks like it presents a geographic divide between France and Romania.

The Veteran Actor as a Humorously Exhausted Clergyman Hunting Vampires

Christoph Waltz plays a humorous yet burdened vampire-hunting priest – it’s surprising he never took on this character previously – who arrives in Paris in 1889 for the French Revolution centenary celebrations. Likewise present is the sinister Dracula, played by the expert in grotesque roles Caleb Landry Jones using a distorted Eastern European tone similar to Steve Carell’s Gru from the Despicable Me comedies. It’s a role that he too was born to take on.

The Plot: A Tale of Love and Loss

Here’s the premise: the count has wandered endlessly the globe in sorrow over four centuries since he became undead, a penalty for his faithless sorrow after the passing of his spouse Elisabeta (a first film part for Zoë Bleu, daughter of Rosanna Arquette). Dracula has been searching, searching, searching for a lady who could be the return of his deceased partner. By cruel fate, the chosen woman is revealed as Mina (portrayed once more by Bleu), the reserved future wife of Dracula’s wimpish land agent, Jonathan Harker (Ewens Abid), who lately visited to Dracula’s fortress to review his real estate holdings and the small picture of the charming Mina caught the count’s hooded eye.

Besson’s Direction and Comic Flair

Besson arranges Dracula’s second-act backstory of worldwide travels in various outrageous costumes skillfully, and he is not above providing some comedy moments in the style of Mel Brooks – such as the vampire’s constant unsuccessful tries to end his own life after Elisabeta’s death, along with absurd moments that result after Dracula douses himself using a particular scent in historic Florence, which makes him irresistible to women. Ridiculous and watchable.

Dracula can be streamed online beginning on the first of December and for physical purchase from 22 December. It screens in Australian cinemas from 5 February 2026.