Dracula (1992) - film review

In 1462, Vlad Dracula survives a bloody war against Turkish invaders only to find that his wife Elisabeta has killed herself upon receiving a false report that he was slain in battle.  Heart-broken, Dracula swears that he will one day avenge the death of his beloved.   In 1897, Jonathan Harker travels to Transylvania to conclude some real estate business with Count Dracula, which includes the purchase of several properties in London.  The Count, now a wizened old man, is awe-struck when he sees a picture of Harker’s fiancée Mina.  She is the very likeness of Elisabeta.  Is it possible that Dracula will be reunited with his one true love after all this time...?

Francis Ford Coppola’s take on the vampire legend is a spirited attempt to reposition it in the realm of 19th Century romanticism, and consequently it makes a striking contrast with previous Dracula films which tend to be concerned merely with the macabre trappings of Gothic fantasy.  Whilst Coppola should be commended for opting for such a bold break with tradition, the film he delivers is far from perfect.  It is an overblown, self-indulgent epic that seems to wallow in its excessive visual artistry.  Any resemblance to a novel by Bram Stoker is pretty well incidental.

The endless switching between story strands is migraine-inducing and robs the film of both coherence and dramatic impact.  Gary Oldman succeeds in portraying the vampiric Count as a tragic romantic victim, but his efforts are largely undermined by Coppola’s almost manically arty mise en scène and Anthony Hopkins’ interpretation of Van Helsing as a creation that lies somewhere between grand guignol and pantomime.  The film was a major box office hit and was generally well-received by the critics when it was first released, but two decades on it looks like a 1980s pop video gone badly wrong - loud, garish and totally vacuous.

© Steve Chandler 2010

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