There's a New Dracula Movie Out This Weekend, but Is It a Must-See?
Dracula, from Fifth Element and Lucy director Luc Besson, is a wacky slice of Eurotrash theatrics. It’s stagnant and loopy in equal measure. God knows what American audiences will make of it when it limps into cinemas this weekend.
Dracula Is a Strange Love Story
Besson’s Dracula was released last summer in international territories as Dracula: A Love Tale, a subtitle that's been dropped for the American market but aptly describes what we get here. This is the traditional Dracula legend as seen through the vampire’s undying love for his deceased wife, Elisabeta (Zoë Bleu), who is assassinated in the moments before he’s made eternal. Hundreds of years later, Count Drac (played with a committed flair by Caleb Landry-Jones, of X-Men: First Class) is prowling the streets of Europe still searching for his long-lost love. When her doppelgänger appears in the form of Mina Murray (also Bleu), he thinks he may have another shot at love. Of course, this conflicts with the plan of an unnamed priest (Christoph Waltz) who wants to execute the blood-sucker once and for all.
Dracula Looks Great, But Is Dull and Hollow
This version of Dracula is as well-rendered as it is unnecessary, though there are enough positives to make you wish the whole thing worked more effectively. Anyone familiar with the many screen interpretations of the iconic villain, including Robert Eggers’ equally stale Nosferatu (2024), will know what to expect. Besson does little to jazz up the narrative proceedings outside of expanding Dracula’s love life, depicted here in florid detail. But the romantic elements sit awkwardly alongside the more familiar horror set pieces, which are rendered without grandeur despite some top-notch production design and costume work.
It Eventually Devolves Into Lame Bloodletting
Landry-Jones is always an effective and committed lead, and here—in makeup eerily reminiscent of Gary Oldman's turn as Dracula in Francis Ford Coppola's 1992 adaptation—his performance is at times genuinely repellent in the most compelling fashion. (This is his second film in a row with Besson, after 2023’s Dogman.) Some nice suspense is also built throughout the second act, while Dracula is kept off-screen and the audience is in Waltz’s coolly assured hand as he once again plays the wry, vaguely Germanic Christoph Waltz character.
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Yet the third act fumbles, leading to a succession of similar sequences in which Drac prowls fancy Victorian parties with lustful intentions. This is when the juxtaposition between love story and horror epic becomes most fractured; scenes alternate with so little logic and rhythm that, if watching at home, you'll have look to make sure you haven't sat on the remote. Once the climax arrives, everything falls into a predictable and unspectacular order—fisticuffs with a side of bloody beheadings—and the whole thing disappears from memory before final credits roll. Besson's movie emphatically fails to distinguish itself from the myriad other screen adaptations of Dracula.