Dracula Review – Besson’s Love-Struck Revamp of the Classic Horror Story is Absurd but Watchable

Perhaps audiences aren’t clamoring for a new version of Dracula from Luc Besson, the French maestro for polished extravagance. Still, one must admit: his lavishly upholstered love story with vampires displays creativity and style – and amid its theatrical camp, it could be preferable over the recent, stately interpretation by Robert Eggers of Nosferatu. There are some very bizarre touches, like a particular moment that looks like it presents a territorial boundary between France and Romania.

Waltz as a Clever but Weary Clergyman Hunting Vampires

Christoph Waltz portrays a witty yet careworn cleric fighting vampires – it feels natural for him to tackle such a part earlier – who arrives in Paris in 1889 during the centennial of the French Revolution. So does the evil Count Dracula, played by the body-horror veteran Caleb Landry Jones with a mangled central European accent evoking Carell’s Gru character from the Despicable Me comedies. It’s a role that he too was born to take on.

The Plot: A Chronicle of Longing

Here’s the premise: the count has wandered endlessly the globe in anguish over four centuries following his rise as one of the undead, a punishment for his irreligious grief after the passing of his spouse Elisabeta (a movie debut role for Zoë Bleu, daughter of Rosanna Arquette). Dracula has sought relentlessly for a lady who would be the rebirth of his deceased partner. As ill fortune would have it, the chosen woman proves to be Mina (also Bleu, of course), the demure fiancee of Dracula’s wimpish land agent, Jonathan Harker (Ewens Abid), who lately visited to the vampire’s estate to negotiate his property portfolio 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 global roaming in various outrageous costumes skillfully, and he doesn’t shy away from offering some comedy moments in the style of Mel Brooks – for example the count’s repeated and futile attempts to end his own life following Elisabeta’s passing, along with comical sequences that occur when Dracula sprays himself using a particular scent in historic Florence, which makes him compelling to the opposite sex. Absurd yet engaging.

Dracula can be streamed online from 1 December and for physical purchase from 22 December. It plays in Australian cinemas from 5 February 2026.