Dracula (2025)

Director Luc Besson's new take on DRACULA is a big budget, sweeping horror spectacle that's far better than I expected it to be. It deserved a bigger audience in theaters.

An interesting cast, beautiful photography and more than a subtle reverence for Francis Ford Coppola's 1992 take make this a surprisingly stunning film.

Besson has, at his best, always been one of my favorite French filmmakers, with his films oozing his unique visual style. "The Fifth Element", "La Femme Nikita"and his underappreciated "Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets" all have enough visual flair for ten films. He brings that same sensibility to his take on the Bram Stoker classic.

Leaning in hard on the film as a love story, just as Coppola did, Besson roots his tale in an undying love that crosses many centuries.

The film opens with the brash 15th century Prince Vlad (a fascinating Caleb Landry Jones) madly in love with his Queen Elisabeta (Zoe Bleu). They make love, drink, make love again, drink some more. His senior soldiers have to break in and drag him off to war. But before Vlad leaves, he swears to the Priest in his castle that, at all costs, God must protect Elisabeta.

Besson then drops us into a beautifully staged, massive battle with armored knights on horseback across snowy fields. When Vlad gets word that forces have attacked the Queen's carriage, he rushes off at full speed, galloping toward his fate as Dracula.

I kept wondering what the film's budget was (over $50 million) because it looks absolutely rich, stunning and dripping in period detail. Besson does not disappoint.

The film then moves ahead to the story we are all too familiar with. That familiarity came with me when viewing the film. Did I really need to see another version? I hesitated, thinking I knew the story too well, but fascinated to see what a truly visionary director brought to it.

Besson wraps every setting in lush detail. As Dracula takes a home in a perfectly foreboding castle and Jonathan Harker (a rather bland Ewens Abid) arrives at Dracula's lair, I forgot all about the familiar. Besson presents magic and powers that meet Harker's every turn. When the centuries old Count Dracula arrives to greet Harker, it's a direct and honorable homage to Gary Oldman's superb Count in Coppola's classic. Shadows play, doors move, the Count seems to be at the top of the stairs one moment and at Harker's side the next.

Jones's makeup as the Count is fantastic, ancient, his white hair wrapped up into a Geisha style that seems three times larger than his head. It makes Oldman's famous hairdo seem tame by comparison. Gone is Jones young, enthusiastic voice that teased his young Queen. He now possesses a deep, disturbing baritone that terrifies and seems to drip danger, gravitas and lust.

Once the Count sees a picture of Harker's fiance Mina, the old vampire is filled with overwhelming desire to reunite with his love Elisabeta, reincarnated in the young form of Mina.

Christoph Waltz (Inglorious Basterds,Django Unchained) is having a very good time here as a Priest whose order has been on Dracula's trail for centuries. Waltz is always so good at creating powerful, complex characters with huge splashes of humor. His Priest is no exception.

Guillaume de Tonquedec is Waltz's perfect screen partner as Dr. Dumont, who's baffled by all the blood loss around London.

Raphael Luce is also very good as Dumont's loyal assistant, whose young blood seems irresistible to those with an appetite.

Besson clearly has a deep affection for Coppola's film, serving up direct and subtle references to that film's unique take on Stoker's tale. Some are very obvious including the same book-ended scenes to begin and end the film centered on Vlad/Elisabeta and Dracula/Mina's love. He also depicts Vlad's deep hate for the Church after what he sees as a betrayal of faith.

Danny Elfman has created a beautiful new score for the film, but there are about 5-7 second sequences that directly pay tribute to Wojciech Kilar's classic music for Coppola's film. It delivers some powerful payoff if you remember Kilar's work.

Count Dracula's centuries long quest to find his reincarnated Elisabeta brings us a very sophisticated Count. Once he's satisfied a couple centuries of bloodlust and once again takes his young form, Caleb Landry Jones becomes one of the most interesting Draculas in film history. Jones (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, American Made, Get Out) is a great actor, but here he's a brilliant chameleon as well. He's Barry Lyndon one moment and a blood thirsty fiend praying on a literal stack of nuns the next. He'll do anything to reunite with his Elisabeta. I went into the film wondering what Jones would bring to the part, but he delivers a powerful take on centuries of love & evil.

Besson is a master of visuals and the film lives up to his legacy. Widescreen outdoor vistas frame conflicts and pursuits while Dracula's castle is a massive house of horrors. Besson's inclusion of the castle's gargoyles is an interesting choice and wavered somewhere between the 1972 TV film "Gargoyles" with Cornel Wilde that scared the hell out of me as a kid, and some stone version of the Ewoks. They are, for me, the only misstep in a visionary take on Stoker.

I'm a (blood) sucker for a great telling of the Dracula legend. Besson delivers the best version since Coppola's back in '92, earning a very surprising B+.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hverb7siYJ8