This movie review does not contain spoilers.
One night, my friend Caden invited me to go to the movie theater to watch the movie Dracula with him.
According to Wikipedia Dracula (also titled Dracula: A Love Tale) is a 2025 English-language French Gothic romantic fantasy film, written and directed by Luc Besson, based on the 1897 novel Dracula by Bram Stoker. It stars Caleb Landry Jones as the eponymous character, alongside Christoph Waltz and Zoë Bleu. It was theatrically released in France on 30 July 2025, by SND and had a wide theatrical release in North America on 6 February 2026. The film received mixed critical reviews and positive reviews from audiences, and has currently grossed $40.7 million worldwide on a budget of $52 million.
One of the first things I would like to say about the movie is that I think the film does an incredible job balancing the horror and romance sides of the film. The film contains genuine scenes of horror with the most famous horror character in history Dracula. We see Dracula acting calm and respectful towards a guest one moment and torturing him the next moment. That is why he is so terrifying in this film; you never know if Dracula will go up to someone to just have a conversation or go up to them to suck their blood.
The film also contains phenomenal scenes of romance between Dracula and his main love interest Mina Harker, the film begins by establishing the relationship between the couple being truly in love with each other and both of them can’t live without each other, that why it is so heartbreaking when the wife of Dracula tragically died at the end of the opening scene of the film, that makes Dracula journey through the rest of the film trying to find the reincarnation of his wife so compelling.
The acting overall is really great, and most of the actors bring their all into this movie. Some stand out from the movie include Christoph Waltz, who played a priest who is hunting Dracula, and his performance is top-notch. Another standout performance in the movie was Ewens Abid, who played Jonathan Harker, a man exploring Dracula’s castle when he stumbled upon the vampire himself. His performance when he was being tortured by Dracula was so convincing that I thought he was actually getting tortured for real. And of course, I have to mention Caleb Landry Jones, who played Dracula. His performance was one of the best things about the movie. He can be charming and romantic in one scene and cold and calculated in the next scene; he is so perfect at switching between the two that it is like magic.
Another big strength of the film was its story. The film tells a compelling story with loss, love, perseverance, faith, and acceptance. The way that the story is shown is nothing but magnificent. The movie switches between multiple perspectives throughout the film and it is done so well that I never felt confused watching the movie. I also feel like Dracula’s journey throughout the film was perfect from start to end. Dracula had a strong, compelling, intriguing, and satisfying story.
One more thing I really like about the film was its cinematography. The Cinematographer Colin Wandersman, did such an outstanding job on the film that I think he deserves an Academy Award for his work in the film. He made every scene look so stunning. We get to see a medieval castle and battle at the beginning of the film, and it looks absolutely awesome and accurate to the time period. We also see the city of Paris in the middle of the movie, and every scene in Paris looks so gorgeous and colorful. Even the short scenes of Dracula in Egypt and Italy are stunning and really impressive.
One thing about the film that I am mixed about is the effects. When Dracula is showing off his sharp teeth and sucking people’s blood, it looks amazing. On the other hand, Dracula has these gargoyle statues in his castle, and they come to life and attack the humans. The gargoyles look terrible, and it looks so silly when they attack the humans.
One thing I did not like about the film is that during the middle part of the movie, when Dracula is looking for this woman in Paris, he sends another woman under his control to find and trick this woman into going somewhere alone so Dracula can drink her blood. But the way this woman convinced the other lady to come with her did not make sense to me. The lady that Dracula is looking for goes to her friend’s engagement party, and she meets the lady under Dracula’s control, and the two quickly become best friends and start doing everything together. This did not make sense to me because why would spent a ton of time with someone you just met and is acting very strange. I would understand if both of them were long-time best friends, but the two ladies literally just met a couple of days ago, and I think that is idiotic.
Overall I think Dracula: A Love Tale by Luc Besson’s is a great remake of a all time classic horror movie, and I highly recommend going over to the movie theater to see it on the big screen.
