When you hear about Luc Besson’s latest film Dracula A Love Tale there’s something you might be thinking: Do we really need another Dracula adaptation? It’s the most adapted novel ever written, there’s a version of Bram Stoker’s vampiric Count for every decade since the 30s and most years since the 60s. Its popularity doesn’t dwindle. 

Besson’s Dracula paints a picture of a love-stupid and chaotic young Prince (Caleb Landry Jones, Antiviral), who goes to war, loses the love of his life in tragic circumstance, and renounces God in favor of Satan. From there, Besson assumes the audience gets the jist, and the story goes as expected. Kind of. This time round, Dracula enhances his hypnotic powers with a perfume used to draw masses of women to him, in the hopes he might find the reincarnation of his long-dead love (Zoe Bleu). He also has gargoyle henchman and bigger hair than Gary Oldman’s Dracula. 

If it sounds vaguely batshit that’s because it is. Besson is a master of the overt, a purveyor of big budget opulence, an orchestrator of verbose silliness. His taste levels flit between questionable, daring, and daft, as does his quality control. It’s what makes him so interesting. For every Fifth Element there’s a Lucy. For every Subway there’s a Valerian. A Luc Besson adaptation of Dracula should be exactly this; camp, entrancing, deliciously put together, but sometimes stupid and tonally crackpot. 

And it has the capacity to be very stupid indeed. 

Besson has commented that he didn’t read the book before attacking his adaptation, so his version of Dracula is gleaned from pop culture and, very clearly, Bram Stoker’s Dracula. In many ways, Dracula A Love Story feels like an adaptation of an adaptation, as if Besson watched Coppola’s lavish 1991 Gothic masterpiece and got reeeeeeeeal competitive. The Dracula wig is draggier than Oldman’s, the love story more palpable, even Christoph Waltz’ Van Helsing-style priest is a more intriguing creature than Anthony Hopkins’. Aside from comparison, it is worth commending Besson for tackling the emotional complexity of a blood-hungry romantic. Jones is a fabulous Dracula, equal parts sexy and creepy, sympathetic and deadly, ingenuous and obsessed, yet never quite fully formed. The film doesn’t let him do that. Something is missing. 

Besson has issues with atmosphere and depth. There are moments when the film’s humour detracts from its sincerity whilst its ambition distracts from the, initially convincing, romance. I’m a sucker for camp and will always commend big ideas before safe ones, but there’s a moment in this film where you realise it’s never going to hit the mark. Inconsistency is its bane. The sweeping scope gives way to out-of-place comedy, the heartfelt drama leads to a brawl with CGI gargoyles, a pristinely realized period Paris can feel hollow and plastic. At times, there’s a creeping suspicion that the film’s, clearly sizeable, budget was blown on production design and costumes, not cameras and editing. There’s a cheap sheen that sometimes evokes Hallmark romance or TV period piece. Something this big shouldn’t feel this cheap. 

Yet for all the niggles, Besson does pull off some sublime set pieces (a mound of feral nuns?!), images and ideas never put in a Dracula adaptation. For that, the film is still well worth checking out. The discerning Stoker fan will be pleasantly surprised, the average viewer entertained, the Besson enthusiast sated. 

So, do we really need another Dracula adaptation? No but also who cares? Just by the fact we keep making them, proves the appetite lingers. Familiarity with Dracula’s iconography, and the beats of the story, mean it remains fertile ground for fresh takes. An adaptation has the freedom to do some mad things specifically because we know the story. The question isn’t ‘do we need another adaptation’ the question is ‘what can we do different this time’. So, in that way, Besson pulls of an entertaining variation that proves there’s still blood in these old veins. 

3/5 

Scott Clark 

Dir. Luc Besson 

Starring. Caleb Landry Jones, Zoe Bleu, Christoph Waltz, Matilda De Angelis,