{"id":452820,"date":"2026-02-06T16:50:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T16:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/452820\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T16:50:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T16:50:09","slug":"luc-besson-and-caleb-landry-jones-teamed-up-for-a-dumb-dracula","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/452820\/","title":{"rendered":"Luc Besson and Caleb Landry Jones teamed up for a dumb Dracula"},"content":{"rendered":"

Luc Besson\u2019s 2026 movie adaptation Dracula seems to be based largely on Bram Stoker\u2019s Dracula. To clarify, I do not mean Besson\u2019s movie was inspired by Stoker\u2019s classic 1897 horror novel: On the basis of his Dracula, I\u2019m not certain Besson has even read the book. Instead, he appears to be adapting the 1992 Francis Ford Coppola movie Bram Stoker\u2019s Dracula<\/a>, right down to imitating its significant deviations from the novel. In the United Kingdom, posters for the Besson film even bill it that way: Bram Stoker\u2019s Dracula, just like the Coppola movie. The idea should be laughable \u2014 the Eurotrash maven Besson clumsily approximating Coppola approximating Stoker. But in a strange way, Besson has made a Dracula true to the experience of consuming Gothic\/romantic horror at an impressionable age.<\/p>\n

Besson is actually in his not-that-impressionable mid-60s, but an adolescent impulse has run through much of his work over the years, including (and maybe especially) in his best-loved movies, like The Professional, Lucy, and The Fifth Element<\/a>. In the latter, a seemingly average guy in a futuristic city saves the world (universe?) alongside a waifish-yet-badass Leeloo (Milla Jovovich), who remains one of cinema\u2019s great discomfiting fantasy objects. Rather than downplaying that part of his fantasy, Besson reaches further: Leeloo turns out to be the actual physical embodiment of love.<\/p>\n

Dracula opens with similarly grandiose gestures. Like the Coppola film, Besson\u2019s movie declares more explicitly than Stoker\u2019s novel that Count Dracula is actually real-life warrior-prince Vlad the Impaler, whose name (\u201cVlad Dracula\u201d) inspired Stoker. In both Coppola and Besson\u2019s tellings, Vlad renounces God and embraces vampirism following his wife\u2019s death. In Besson\u2019s version, Prince Vladimir (Caleb Landry Jones) is even more dedicated to his beloved Elisabeta (Zo\u00eb Bleu) than to impaling his rivals; after a montage of the couple pawing at each other and smearing each other with porridge, fellow soldiers must literally peel Vladimir away from his beloved to lead his men in battle.<\/p>\n

They notch a triumphant victory, but Vlad\u2019s enemies still come for Elisabeta, who dies in the scuffle when he rides to her rescue. The key difference from the Coppola version \u2014 we are already quite far afield from Stoker \u2014 is that Elisabeta\u2019s death is partially Vladimir\u2019s fault; he hurls a spear with such force that he impales both his enemy and his love. After killing a priest for failing to keep them both safe through prayer as ordered, Vladimir then renounces God entirely. In the hands of Jones and Besson, this Dracula is\u2026 kind of a dumb-ass.<\/p>\n

As in both the book and Coppola\u2019s film, Jonathan Harker (Ewens Abid) arrives at Castle Dracula centuries later for a real-estate transaction, finding a bizarre, elderly man with a musty, elaborate updo. (Yes, Besson even sees fit to rip off \u2014 er, pay homage to \u2014 Gary Oldman\u2019s iconic hair from Bram Stoker\u2019s Dracula.) Learning that Harker\u2019s fianc\u00e9e Mina (also Bleu) closely resembles Elisabeta, Dracula sets off to find this possible reincarnation of his great love.<\/p>\n

Besson\u2019s main deviation from the Coppola film comes in this mid-section, as Harker engages Dracula in a spot of Interview with the Vampire, leading to a series of vignettes about Dracula\u2019s attempts to locate Elisabeta over the years. This includes further evidence that Dracula will not be beating the dum-dum charges, such as when he digs up Elisabeta\u2019s grave years after her passing, and seems shocked and dismayed to find that her body has in fact decayed.<\/p>\n

\"Vlad
\n Image: Vertical Entertainment<\/p>\n

But Besson also adds weird, entertaining inventions like a de facto dance number turned bloodbath, and the conversion of Mina\u2019s best friend Lucy into Maria (Matilda De Angelis), a fully transformed, gleefully voracious vampire foot soldier. Also, presumably to prove his devotion to Mina, Dracula doesn\u2019t stock his castle with sexy, menacing brides. Instead, his helpers are little stone gargoyle guys who have come to life.<\/p>\n

Somewhere around the introduction of Dracula\u2019s gargoyle minions, Besson\u2019s Dracula becomes surprisingly difficult to resist, at least if you\u2019re able to access a certain immature mindset. Some viewers may take a pass on that process. More seriously, they may decline to watch movies directed by a man accused, in court and less formally, of sexual misconduct<\/a>. (A French court acquitted him of rape<\/a> in 2023.) It\u2019s especially noticeable how much romantic sympathy Besson affords a monster-man killing people (including many women) throughout the ages in pursuit of true love. That element is even more pronounced in his film than in Coppola\u2019s.<\/p>\n

But Besson\u2019s Dracula does accurately convey the irresistible pull of the monster romance. Dracula\u2019s love for Elisabeta is intense, mopey, and solipsistic, causing him to throw bloody fits throughout the ages. It\u2019s essentially a teenage crush from hell, even though they\u2019re supposed to be husband and wife.<\/p>\n

\"In
\n Image: Vertical Entertainment<\/p>\n

Jones, who previously worked with Besson on the misguided but compelling 2023 misfit story Dogman (not the animated kids\u2019 film<\/a>; this one is more akin to Joker<\/a>), can be a singularly off-putting presence. This movie was supposedly based more on Besson\u2019s fascination with his star than a particular love for Dracula. Talking to Deadline about the film\u2019s origins, Besson called his star\u2019s talent \u201csomething I haven\u2019t seen since Gary Oldman<\/a>,\u201d who he directed in The Fifth Element. Maybe it was the Oldman connection that caused Besson to crib so much imagery from Coppola\u2019s opulent Oldman-starring version.<\/p>\n

Jones does strike a workable balance between pitiable teenage yearning and more directly malformed, monstrous desires. There\u2019s real soulfulness to the monster in Guillermo del Toro\u2019s Frankenstein<\/a>, and the shadowy evil of the Robert Eggers take on Nosferatu<\/a> is ornate and foreboding. The Caleb Landry Jones Dracula, by contrast, seems like he could write some truly awful romantic poetry or, if he lives long enough, cut a self-indulgent album<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s the real value of Luc Besson\u2019s Dracula: Following del Toro\u2019s Oscar-nominated (and very entertaining) passion project and Eggers\u2019 artistic triumph, it\u2019s fun to see a classic monster story that\u2019s not especially elevated. Besson has no particularly coherent thoughts about the humanity of monsters or monstrousness of humanity. He\u2019s just made a stupidly sincere Gothic love story with some delightfully daft touches \u2014 a reminder that these monsters don\u2019t have to be year-end awards contenders.<\/p>\n

\"Dracula
\n Image: Sony<\/p>\n

Lots of monster fans<\/a> are converted in youth, and this Dracula feels very much like something a teenager could fall in misguided love with, on their way to appreciating bigger swings at the same story, Coppola\u2019s among them. Making this movie was not a particularly dignified use of a 66-year-old\u2019s time \u2014 but then, Dracula isn\u2019t exactly acting his age either, is he? In the movies, Dracula often fuses the passion of youth, the seductiveness of experience, and the fearsome grotesquerie of both; he\u2019s an elderly teenager. Dracula gets that ridiculous vibe right.<\/p>\n

Dracula is in theaters Feb. 6.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Luc Besson\u2019s 2026 movie adaptation Dracula seems to be based largely on Bram Stoker\u2019s Dracula. To clarify, I…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":452821,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[88,206],"class_list":{"0":"post-452820","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-movies"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=452820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452820\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/452821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}