Dracula Review – Luc Besson’s romantic reimagining of the gothic classic is ridiculous but watchable | film

pThere is perhaps little enthusiasm for a new version of Dracula from Luc Besson, the flamboyant and puffy French maestro. However, it has to be said: this lavishly upholstered vampire romance is ambitious and skillful – and in all its hammering cheese, I’m not sure I wouldn’t prefer it to Robert Eggers’ recent, elegant version of Nosferatu. There are some very strange touches, including one shot showing the land border between France and Romania.

Christoph Waltz plays a smart, carefree, vampire-hunting priest — I can’t believe he hasn’t played this role before — who finds himself in Paris in 1889 to celebrate the centenary of the French Revolution. So does the evil Count Dracula, played by body horror veteran Caleb Landry Jones, with a distorted Central European accent reminiscent of Steve Carell’s Gru from the Despicable Me comedies. This is the part he was born to do too.

The story is as follows: The Count has been wandering restlessly through the world in pain for 400 years since he became a dead man, as punishment for his irreligious grief over the death of his wife Elisabetta (the first film role of Zoe Blow, daughter of Rosanna Arquette). The Count was searching and searching and searching for a woman who would be the embodiment of his lost love. Unfortunately, the lucky lady turns out to be Mina (also Blue, of course), the demure fiancée of Dracula’s wimpy land agent, Jonathan Harker (Owens Abed), who has recently gone to the Count’s castle to discuss his property portfolio and whose miniature portrait of the charming Mina has caught the Count’s hooded eye.

Besson builds Dracula’s backstory into the second act of his world-traveling in various outrageous costumes, and he’s not above giving us some comedic moments with a distinct Mel Brooks flavor – such as the Count’s repeated and futile attempts to kill himself after Elisabetta’s death, as well as the farcical scenes that result after Dracula douses himself with a certain perfume in 18th-century Florence, making him irresistible to women. Funny and watchable.