Writer/director Luc (Leon: The Professional/The Fifth Element) Besson's Dracula: A Love Tale is the latest, cinematic take on Bram Stoker's perennial novel. It's a remake, therefore, but more so, a remake of a remake: a specialized turn, indeed, but this wouldn't be the first time such an uncanny revival was achieved.
Victor Fleming's 1941 adaptation of Robert Louis Steven's Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is, in fact, a redux of Rouben Mamoulian's 1931 adaptation. The productions are reflections of each other, with precise, comparative components shared from one to the other, including the character of Ivy, played first by Mariam Hopkins and later by Ingrid Bergman. (For the record, Ivy is an evident retooling of Nita Naldi's Gina from John S. Robertson's 1920, silent classic.)
For Besson's 2025 Dracula, which shifts its chief location from England to France, we're dealt an imprint of Francis Ford Coppola's 1992 Bram Stoker's Dracula. (Some have argued that Dario Argento's controversial, 2012 edition is as much a remake of Coppola's, though others maintain that it only reframes several key scenes from the earlier picture.) The parallel between the 1992 and 2025 retellings makes Mina Murray not just a fetching lass who catches the Count's eye, but rather his reincarnated love. (This idea was used in Karl Freund/John L. Balderston's The Mummy, which many consider an unofficial reimagining of Dracula.)
Also, as in the Coppola retelling, the Turk-battling Dracula rejects Christianity when his love is struck dead. Dracula's mate, in this respect, is named Elisabeta in both the 1992 and 2025 versions, fitting the carryover tradition set by the Jekyll/Hyde set. (Please note: Elisabeta doesn't exist in Stoker's novel or in any other Dracula play, series or movie.)
Caleb Landry (The Last Exorcism) Jones is quite effective as the suave, parasitic lead, tapping the Gothic, Old World command of Bela Lugosi, John Carradine, Francis Lederer, Christopher Lee, Zandor Vorkov, Louis Jordan, Frank Langella, Michael Nouri, Duncan Regehr, Geordie Johnson, Gerard Butler, Thomas Kretschmann, Jonathan Rhys Meyers ... and Claes Bang, underscored by Gary Oldman's anxious, grief-ridden hostility and the fever-eyed avidity of Udo Kier, Howard Vernon, Klaus Kinski and Lon Chaney Sr.'s Man in the Beaver Hat, as captured in so many London After Midnight stills.
Zoe Bleu plays the Elisabeta/Mina counterparts, with Matilda De Angelis as the enslaved Maria (i.e. Lucy Westenra) and Christoph Waltz (who struck a jolting chord in Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein) as the Priest, an Abraham Van Helsing surrogate (and implied exorcist), who imbues his character with an endurance that recalls Anthony Hopkins' 1992 incarnation, supplemented by a decent strand of Peter Cushing's from his Hammer chapters, Andrew Keir's Father Sandor from Terence Fisher's Dracula: Prince of Darkness, Herbert Lom's from Jess Franco's Count Dracula and Hugh Jackman's from Stephen Sommers' monster rally, Van Helsing.
Comprising the biding, supporting cast is Ewens Abid as Jonathan Harker, Guillaume de Tonquedec as Dr. Dumont (i.e. John/Jack Seward) and David Shields as Henry Spencer (i.e. a blending of Arthur Homewood and Quincy Morris). It should be noted that the alteration of names is an explored (if not copyright-deceiving) horror-movie practice used in F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu, as well as Stephen Weeks' I, Monster, an Amicus reimagining of Jekyll/Hyde, though the entirety of Dark Shadows did much the same without an ounce of shame. (Is Jonathan Frid's Barnabas Collins not Dracula in disguise?)
Jones' indefatigable "Vlad of Wallachia" pursues Mina much like Oldman's version pursues his own (though in Jones' case, with a few Highlander-styled flashbacks along the way). These Draculas are prompted not by superficial lust, but to reinstate their plundered existences, all within stretches that grow insufferable without Elisabeta. Whether with the 1992 or 2025 entry, Dracula believes (if only per implication) that regaining his love will spur his redemption: that the power of love eradicates sin. Of course, this notion is naive, and with a committed vampire hunter on his tail, any second chance for the Count is marked by inevitable comeuppance. Dracula, after all, must pay for his deeds, which pushes the movie to its despairing conclusion. (Danny Elfman's mercurial/music-box-ish score billows through this emotional motif, referencing a popular, Dark Shadows passage, though Colin Wandersman's cinematography counters the idyllic sweeps with militaristic heft and unearthly foreboding.)
Make no mistake, though Dracula: A Love Tale probes affairs of the heart (and is devoid of wolf and bat transformations, castle brides and alas, an insect-nibbling R.M. Renfield), it does get monstrous when need be, offering a dozen gargoyle servants in its Carpathian phases and down the morbid line, one snappy decapitation. Even so, the production's amorous aura devours most of its menace, placing it alongside other such tender takes as the obvious, Coppola edition, Javier Aguirre/Paul Naschy's Dracula's Great Love, Bram Stoker's Dracula 1974 (directed by Dark Shadows' Dan Curtis and starring Jack Palance), the Cliffhangers serial, The Curse of Dracula (with the aforementioned, pre-Flashdance Nouri), Dracula Untold (a passionate prequel with Luke Evans), Love at First Bite (a jaunty escapade with George Hamilton) and William Crain's Blacula (a modern, Dracula spinoff, starring William Marshall, which holds a lost-love, reincarnation angle of its own.)
Stoker's novel was always considered romantic, if only in the way it could quicken a reader's pulse. Dracula: A Love Tale plucks that string, and for those who appreciate the warmth behind a vampire's clamminess, this one should fit like a custom-made glove. Take a bite. You might just find that this weird, love tale stakes the right, reiterated spot.
