After successfully pushing back the Ottoman army, Prince Vladimir of Wallachia (Caleb Landry Jones) is alerted of a ruffian force that has ambushed his wife, Elisabeta (Zoë Bleu), and her detail on her journey to safety away from the war. Enraged that God would take his wife from him while he fought in a crusade in his name, Vlad denounces the faith and in turn is likewise cursed with the misery of eternal life. For four hundred years, he has searched for the reincarnation of his lost love when, through chance, he learns that Mina, the fiancée of his real-estate broker, Jonathan (Ewens Abid), bears a striking resemblance to the perished princess.

Luc Besson adapts Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula into a 129-minute film of the same name with a focus and extrapolation on the more romantic themes of the gothic novel. The film, eschewing the festival circuit, still traveled the world ahead of its release in the States, courtesy of Vertical Entertainment who placed it on a hair over 2,000 screens, lining the title up to build some buzz and then coast on its holdover crowd of audiences looking for some alternative viewing for its second weekend across the Valentine’s Day frame.

It is hard to knock a film based on a seminal work of literature that is over 125 years old, but releasing – at least in the States – so close on the heels of Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu (2024) and in an entertainment landscape where Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) is still a major horror touchstone, Dracula a la Besson needs to determine a balance between fealty to the source material and making a statement as to justify its existence. Besson makes some unique choices in his approach, unafraid to dip into the darker motifs of the story while also trying to balance the film with a peculiar streak of humor taking a page out of Disney‘s handbook with what seems like a merchandising attempt in Vlad’s bumbling gargoyle house staff.

The film opens on the eve of the Ottoman ambush, and for much of this opening sequence, it seems like Dracula will take a more historical approach, corner stoning the horror events which we know so well with a more folkloric approach to Vlad the Impaler’s plight. Corinne Bruand’s costumes shine here, specifically Elisabeta’s impractical-for-horse-riding princess gown, but it fits in so perfectly with the dark, eastern European fairytale aesthetic which production designer Hugues Tissandier was after. Colin Wandersman’s camera captures the deep crimson hellfire of the battlefield before switching it up to the purity of the snow-covered field under which hide wolf traps signaling to audiences that later, every display of hospitality much be carefully scrutinized. Of course, the eventual blood stains look shocking spilled across the snow before Besson transitions to the more standard front matter of the story setting up the land sale that brings Vlad from the far away Carpathian Mountains, this time to Paris amidst celebrations of the centenary of the French Revolution.

One of the more interesting inventions in Besson’s telling, however, is Vlad’s development and use of an intoxicating perfume that allows him to place people under his spell. The result is a tonally anachronistic dance montage as he travels around the great halls of Europe in search of his Elisabeta, and with a flick of his hand this way or that, royal courts move in synchronicity at his will. It is honestly quite a fun sequence that acts as a capstone to Vlad’s adventures across the Eastern Hemisphere to the local markets perfecting his perfume, and it brings an incredible amount of vibrant color that is often drained from renditions of Vlad’s search for his queen by this time in the narrative. Jones, specifically in these sequences, treats his performance almost foppish as he imbues his Count with a sense of bemused whimsy; to call it bordering on Depp-ian would not be a totally out of left field connection to make given the music box score from Danny Elfman. Whatever one choses to call it, it all adds to the more lighthearted elements as the gargoyles do but without the baggage of underfunded VFX work so it goes down much easier.

As for the more conventional aspects of the film, it follows all of the expected story beats, right on cue, with the only major omission being Vlad’s land transport as he arrives in Paris by carriage instead of by ill-fated ship. Beyond that, it is more a series of strange substitutions such as a priest (Christoph Waltz) filling the role of Van Helsing and an allusion to a Renfield-esque character as Wandersman’s lens focuses in on a jolly, bearded man under Dr. Dumont’s (Guillaume de Tonquédec) care at the asylum who we later see at one of the markets during Vlad’s centuries-long escapade across Europe and the eastern continents. Waltz is given frightfully little to do here but plays his limited scenes with the gravitas expected from him, but that same seriousness sits almost counter to the tone which Besson and Jones have established so it almost seems as if this nameless priest is the only one not in on an elaborate joke.

While Waltz seems a little off target for the role and the film, Bleu is saddled with a rather thankless rendition of Elisabeta/Mina who spends much of her time in slightly sapphic friendship with Maria (Matilda De Angelis), an agent of Vlad charged to find her, and captured by Dumont in Paris. Even by standards of other more traditional Dracula, and especially Nosferatu, tellings, this Mina has exceptionally little to do and even less agency over what action the script does afford her. One of the persistent problems with these stories is how Jonathan goes missing for much of the middle, and this version of Mina, while occasionally flinching at Vlad’s advances, never seems to truly wonder the whereabouts of her delayed husband. Then again, how could she have the time to wonder, much less mourn, when Maria is dragging her through the carnival to and fro? This sequence does, however, have that swoon worthy quality about it as Jones’ Vlad finds himself perfectly placed in the frame to be there to support Mina when she gets lost in the arcade mirrors or spooked in the haunted house; tall, dark, and handsome with a danger only we in the audience are privy to. It is these scenes where Besson’s intent to explore and extrapolate on the romantic themes of the novel are most clear, but the storied history of the tale wins out in the end and Besson never spins the story off too wildly from the tracks to really explore the underlying love story that could have placed Mina on more equal footing with her scene partner. Again, her decision to go with Vlad to his castle has always been an underdeveloped plot element, but in a telling of the tale that seeks to focus on the tragic love, that it remains so soft here is a true shame and a betrayal of Besson’s own hypothesis behind writing the script in this way.

Despite its stumblings, Besson’s Dracula is still an enjoyable film to watch with plenty of visual flairs to enchant us under Vlad’s spell. Staying much truer to the source than some of the more blood soaked, exploitative entries of the 1980s, Besson still manages to make the story his own, and while he directed his craft departments to work in the shadows of some of the more prolific adaptations that came before, his entry nevertheless serves as an engaging and competent pathway to start one’s own exploration backwards through one of cinema’s most beloved frightful figures. There is enough that can be recognized while Besson brings plenty of new elements and interpretations to the text that this telling of Dracula manages to shake off any of the slapdash notions that this is simply being anything but derivative or uninspired. Sure, the avenues which he steers his telling offer rich new scenarios cut short by the existing framework of the narrative, but along with his creative team, they create a storybook world that it is impossible not to fall into and loose oneself, if only for a few fleeting hours.