Dracula Movie Critique – The French Director’s Romantic Reimagining of the Classic Horror Story is Absurd but Engaging

It’s possible there is no great enthusiasm for a new version of Dracula from Luc Besson, the filmmaker known for glossiness and bloat. Still, one must admit: his richly designed vampire romance boasts bold vision and flair – and in all its Hammer-y cheesiness, it could be preferable to it to Eggers’s dignified recent take of Nosferatu. Odd details emerge, like a particular moment that appears to show a geographic divide between France and Romania.

The Veteran Actor as a Humorously Exhausted Clergyman Hunting Vampires

Christoph Waltz plays a clever but beleaguered man of the church pursuing the undead – I can’t believe he hasn’t played this role before – who ends up in Paris in 1889 during the centennial of the French Revolution. Likewise present is the evil Count Dracula, brought to life by the body-horror veteran Caleb Landry Jones using a distorted Eastern European tone reminiscent of the voice of Gru by Steve Carell from the Despicable Me comedies. This character that he too was born to take on.

The Plot: A Tale of Love and Loss

Here’s the premise: the vampire lord has traveled ceaselessly the earth in torment over four centuries following his rise as one of the undead, a consequence for his faithless sorrow after the passing of his beloved Elisabeta (a first film part for Zoë Bleu, the offspring of Rosanna Arquette). The count has been searching, searching, searching for a female who could be the reincarnation of his lost love. As ill fortune would have it, the chosen woman proves to be Mina (again played by Bleu), the reserved future wife of the count’s timid estate manager, Jonathan Harker (enacted by Ewens Abid), who lately visited to Dracula’s fortress to negotiate his real estate holdings and the tiny painting of the charming Mina attracted Dracula’s gaze.

The Filmmaker’s Approach and Humorous Style

Besson arranges Dracula’s middle-section history of international journeys in various outrageous costumes with a sure hand, and he willingly includes providing funny bits with a distinctly Mel Brooks flavour – such as the count’s repeated and futile attempts to kill himself following Elisabeta’s passing, as well as comical sequences that follow Dracula sprays himself in a certain perfume in 18th-century Florence, which causes him to be irresistible to women. Absurd yet engaging.

Dracula can be streamed online starting December 1st and in disc format from 22 December. It screens in Australian cinemas from 5 February 2026.