There's a scene in Luc Besson's Dracula where the Count tears through a convent full of nuns, leaving absolute carnage in his wake, before their bodies rise into a swirling spiral toward the heavens. Holy fucking shit. It's one of those moments where you sit there staring at the screen, wondering what kind of magnificent lunatic thought this up, and then realize you're grinning like an idiot. It's grotesque, beautiful, blasphemous, completely over the top, and absolutely bonkers in all the right ways. That sequence alone tells you everything you need to know about Besson's approach to Dracula. Subtlety has been driven into the woods, staked through the heart, and buried somewhere nobody will ever find it.

And I fucking loved every second.

Caleb Landry Jones is a wonderfully unhinged Dracula, bringing wounded romanticism, theatrical insanity, and genuine menace to a character who has been interpreted just about every conceivable way over the past century. He's not trying to be Christopher Lee or Gary Oldman, and the film is better for it. Christoph Waltz brings his usual sly intelligence and deliciously dry delivery as the priest pursuing him, while Zoë Bleu gives the film its emotional and romantic center as Elisabeta and Mina. Everybody seems to understand exactly what kind of movie they're making, and nobody is embarrassed by it. That's important, because you cannot approach material this outrageous with one foot on the brake.

And then there's Matilda De Angelis as Maria, who damn near steals the entire fucking movie. What an incredible performance. She's seductive, feral, funny, dangerous, and gloriously unpredictable, sometimes shifting between all five in the space of a single scene. There's something almost hypnotic about watching her, because you never quite know what she's going to do next, and she seems to be having the time of her life doing it. De Angelis understands the delicious absurdity of Besson's vision better than just about anybody in the cast, throwing herself into the role with an absolutely fearless commitment to its madness. She can be genuinely unsettling one moment and wickedly entertaining the next, often without changing her expression. Every time Maria appears, the movie gets a little stranger, a little sexier, and a hell of a lot more interesting. In a film already overflowing with outrageous performances and visual insanity, that's saying something. Fucking scene-stealer right there.

The film is a visual feast, precisely the sort of extravagantly designed production that deserves a 4K presentation. Besson fills the screen with ornate Gothic architecture, elaborate costumes, candlelit interiors, gorgeous bursts of color, and imagery that occasionally seems to have escaped from the fever dreams of a particularly deranged Renaissance painter. The convent sequence is a perfect example of how he can transform something horrifying into an almost perversely beautiful visual spectacle. There's something wonderfully old-fashioned about a movie this determined to overwhelm you with its imagery, particularly when so much contemporary horror seems content to hide everything in the dark.

What makes the whole crazy enterprise work is that Besson actually believes in the doomed romance beneath all the bloodshed and spectacle. This is an unapologetically operatic Dracula, one that wears its heart on its sleeve even while ripping everybody else's out. The film flirts with camp, occasionally leaps straight into it, and then keeps running as though nobody bothered to tell the director he'd crossed some imaginary line of good taste. There are moments that made me laugh out loud, not because the movie had failed, but because I couldn't believe the glorious nerve of what I was watching. Besson has always had a weakness for excess, and here he seems to have decided that excess itself isn't nearly enough. The result is strange, sexy, romantic, grotesque, and frequently fucking hilarious, sometimes all within the same scene.

I've seen enough adaptations of Dracula to know when somebody is simply dragging the old Count out of his coffin for another predictable round of bloodsucking. This isn't one of those movies. Besson has made something unmistakably his own, a wildly entertaining Gothic spectacle that embraces every ridiculous possibility the material offers. Is it excessive? Absolutely. Is it occasionally absurd? You bet your ass. Do I care? Not for one goddamn second. That sequence with the nuns alone is worth the price of admission, but there's so much more wonderfully demented filmmaking surrounding it. I never expected Luc Besson's Dracula to start climbing toward the top of my personal rankings, yet here we are. It's rapidly becoming one of my favorite versions of the story, and I already want to watch the crazy fucking thing again.

Back of the Box

A 15th-century prince loses the woman he loves, renounces God, and finds himself cursed with an eternity he never wanted. Centuries later, Dracula continues searching for the reincarnation of his beloved Elisabeta, convinced that love might somehow overcome death itself. Luc Besson takes Bram Stoker's familiar mythology and transforms it into a lavish Gothic romance filled with religious imagery, supernatural horror, dark humor, and extravagant spectacle. Caleb Landry Jones, Christoph Waltz, Zoë Bleu, and the absolutely electrifying Matilda De Angelis headline a film that is less interested in reinventing the vampire than in making his damnation as visually and emotionally outrageous as possible. And with Danny Elfman providing the music, there's plenty of theatrical madness to go around.

4K UHD Blu-ray Steelbook

Home Video Distributor: Signature Entertainment
Available on Blu-ray - October 12, 2021
Screen Formats: 2.39
Subtitles: English
Audio: 
Discs: 4K Ultra HD; Two-disc set
Region Encoding: 4K region-free

A 15th-century prince loses the woman he loves, renounces God, and finds himself cursed with an eternity he never wanted. Centuries later, Dracula continues searching for the reincarnation of his beloved Elisabeta, convinced that love might somehow overcome death itself.

Luc Besson takes Bram Stoker's familiar mythology and transforms it into a lavish Gothic romance filled with religious imagery, supernatural horror, dark humor, and extravagant spectacle. Caleb Landry Jones, Christoph Waltz, Zoë Bleu, and the absolutely electrifying Matilda De Angelis headline a film that is less interested in reinventing the vampire than in making his damnation as visually and emotionally outrageous as possible. And with Danny Elfman providing the music, there's plenty of theatrical madness to go around.

VIDEO

Signature Entertainment presents Dracula in native 4K at 2160p, framed at 2.39:1, and Besson's extravagantly Gothic production is practically begging for this kind of treatment. The elaborate costumes, ornate architecture, candlelit interiors, and magnificent excess of the film's visual design give the format plenty to show off. This is a movie that moves between darkness and dazzling spectacle with almost reckless enthusiasm, and the convent massacre alone provides a hell of a showcase for the image's fine detail and dramatic compositions.

There's an extraordinary amount happening within Besson's frames, from the textures of Dracula's elaborate wardrobe to the swirling supernatural imagery. The 4K presentation has all the ingredients of a feast for the eyes, though a definitive assessment of its compression, black levels, and HDR performance requires direct evaluation of the disc.

AUDIO

Signature Entertainment provides an English Dolby Atmos soundtrack, with Dolby TrueHD 7.1 compatibility, and that's exactly the kind of audio presentation a movie this gloriously excessive deserves. Danny Elfman's score is a major attraction, sweeping between doomed romanticism, Gothic grandeur, and outright supernatural insanity.

The film's elaborate sound design offers plenty of opportunities for an immersive mix, particularly during Dracula's violent encounters and the more fantastical sequences. The convent massacre, with its combination of carnage, supernatural spectacle, and Elfman's theatrical compositions, is precisely the kind of sequence that ought to give a surround system a serious workout.

There's nothing timid about the film's sonic ambitions, and an Atmos presentation is an appropriate match for Besson's grandiose approach.

Supplements:

Commentary:

• None

Special Features:

Signature Entertainment includes four supplements exploring the making of Besson's wonderfully demented adaptation. The director interview is particularly appealing given the sheer number of outrageous creative decisions involved, while the featurettes cover the development of Dracula, Besson's direction, and Danny Elfman's music.

It's a compact collection rather than an exhaustive documentary retrospective, but the subjects are well chosen. For a film that practically demands an explanation of how some of its more insane imagery reached the screen, any opportunity to get inside the creative process is welcome.

• Interview with Director Luc Besson — A conversation with the filmmaker.
• Becoming Dracula — A behind-the-scenes featurette exploring the character and production.
• Composing Dracula — A featurette devoted to the film's music.
• Directing Dracula — A look at Besson's work behind the camera.

The limited-edition steelbook packaging rounds out a release that feels entirely appropriate for such an unapologetically extravagant film. Dracula is precisely the kind of gloriously unhinged cinematic experience that makes physical media collecting so much fucking fun.

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