The next accommodates mild spoilers for Dracula: A Love StoryDracula: A Love Story is not essentially a great film, however it’s simply weird and humorous sufficient to be an awesome watch. Directed by Luc Besson and with a solid who absolutely decide to the movie’s disjointed tone with campy revelry, Dracula: A Love Story is definitely a hilarious comedy, as long as you embrace the campy components.
The trick is that the movie by no means actually presents itself as one. As a gothic romance, it is lackluster. As a subversion of a traditional horror story, it is extra baffling than thought-provoking. Nonetheless, each intentional and unintentional moments of comedy work surprisingly nicely. Whereas it is from the very best Dracula adaptation, it is among the most entertaining shortly.
Dracula: A Love Story’s Campy Parts Are Its Finest Qualities
Luc Besson’s Dracula: A Love Story is a weird mess of a film, however that is precisely why it is a lot enjoyable. The Fifth Factor director’s model of the traditional horror novel depends on a lot of the identical Gothic romance revisionism that’ll fueled Francis Ford Coppola’s tackle the fabric in Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
There is a give attention to the tragic romance between the immortal monster and his reincarnated misplaced love, the ethical price that may include forsaking one’s humanity for the sake of ardour, and the facility of religion as each a weapon and salvation. There’s doubtlessly heavy materials within the movie, but it surely’s by no means fairly delivered to fruition.
As a substitute, the movie is totally ridiculous, with a virtually wacky tone that sees Dracula drive crowds to make synchronized dances with mind-controlling fragrance, pet gargoyles who attend to Dracula’s family, and fairly probably the dumbest incarnation of Jonathan Harker in over a century of variations. These aren’t bugs however options, becoming a tone that alternates between romantic and goofy ceaselessly.
Even the movie’s extra vicious moments of bloodshed are sometimes punctuated with sudden comedy. Whether or not that be Dracula and Elisabeta’s romantic evenings being stuffed with improv video games or the Prince of Darkness being exhausted with Jonathan’s incapability to comprehend his supernatural capabilities, there are loads of surprisingly humorous bits all through.
That is removed from essentially the most compelling tackle the fabric, however it’s a few of the funniest, with an odd tone and aptitude for the melodramatic that by no means finds an acceptable stability however however delivers loads of laughs. What makes it particularly notable is the way in which that Dracula: A Love Story makes use of that oddness to its sudden benefit.
Nosfartu Is A Higher Film, However Dracula: A Love Story Is Extra Enjoyable
The obvious comparability level for Dracula: A Love Story is the opposite latest cinematic tackle the fabric, 2024’s Nosferatu. That was a movie that basically leaned into the German expressionism on the coronary heart of the unique, enjoying the drama fully straight to ship a really harrowing impact. It is moody, grim, and compelling.
It can be a tough movie to get by way of, given the darker tackle the topic materials and the self-serious performances. Nosferatu is a greater movie than Dracula: A Love Story on virtually each degree, however there is a pleasant weirdness to Luc Besson’s movie that makes it simple to suggest out of pure morbid curiosity.
Whereas Nosferatu engages with the horrifying subtext of an historic evil being so linked to a younger lady, Dracula: A Love Story throws logic out the window for swooning romance and ridiculous visuals. Notably, the solid of Dracula: A Love Story appears to be attuned to the tone, enjoying their characters with a mixture of emotional authenticity and campy self-awareness.
That is no clearer than with Christoph Walz’s unnamed Priest, the movie’s stand-in for Van Helsing. The character spends his first scenes casually ingesting communion wine and utilizing the scientific methodology to find out vampirism, with a specific shrug he offers in direction of a burning cross being a pleasant little bit of non-verbal comedic performing.
Nonetheless, there’s additionally a soulfulness to Waltz’s dynamic with Dracula that provides the movie’s finale a bittersweet contact. The easiest way to observe Dracula: A Love Story is as a comedy, the place Jonathan is a dummy, Mina is befuddled, and Dracula is a love-obsessed weirdo — it is unusual, foolish, and enjoyable in a manner that one thing like Nosferatu cannot be.
Dracula
- Launch Date
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February 6, 2026
- Runtime
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129 minutes
- Director
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Luc Besson
- Writers
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Luc Besson, Bram Stoker