Dracula – A Love Tale (2025)

Nov 8, 2025

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The legacy

Many people said: There won’t be another Dracula film after Coppola’s 1992 masterpiece. Indeed, Francis set the bar high, and yet:

There will always be a demand for the Lord of Darkness’ depictions. Vampires are an integral of our culture. They keep fascinating us, so the number of films, books and TV series on this trope is legion.

Still, Dracula isn’t just any vampire. Dracula is the vampire, since Bram Stoker published his novel in 1897. Note: If you have never read it, do so! Absolutely worth it.

Coppola did indeed an almost perfect job of bringing the novel onto the screen. Does this mean, no other Dracula film should be made?

By no means! The myth is big enough and has long ago detached itself from the original novel to leave plenty of room for new interpretations: Last year, we already had Nosferatu, the remake of Murnau’s 1922 film and Werner Herzog’s splendid 1979 version with Klaus Kinski.

An (almost) spoiler free review

The newest film, Dracula – A Love Tale (2025) was directed by Luc Besson, the director of masterpieces like The Big Blue (1988), La Femme Nikita (1990), Léon: the Professional (1994) and The Fifth Element (1997), but also of rather mediocre works like The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999) and Lucy (2014) and outright trash, like Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017). So, all bets are on. It could go one way or the other.

The first decision, not to try to retell the original story as it is, is a good one. The hunt for the monster is not the centre of the story, but the count’s futile hunt for finding his lost love across the centuries again, is. This is good, as it gives him motive throughout the film, and us, as audience, a reason to root for him.

Some people might find the film’s pacing too slow. I liked it. There are plenty of visual references to other films and quite a lot of funny elements to make it entertaining. The love story, which holds the film together, is great. There are some moments of suspense and horror, but this film keeps it rather light on this aspect.

It is, as the title suggests, a love story, but not a sweet and romantic one. This love is raw, passionate, mad and irrational.

The protagonist Caleb Landry Jones delivers a superb performance. Fabulous!

Unfortunately, the same can’t be said about the rest of the cast. Christoph Waltz as Vampire Hunter is solid, yet unremarkable. The same is true for Zoë Bleu as Elisabeta/Mina. Still, I reckon, Bleu was an excellent casting choice, as she’s not the kind of ravishing beauty, we often see as the protagonist’s main love interest. It makes the love story far more credible and real than just seeing a man obsessed with a perfect body and face.

I actually liked Matilda de Angelis as Maria (Lucy in the novel) as she displays a possessed, yet powerful and happy woman.

Now, it seems, the film did not have all the funding, it should have had.

The costumes are absolutely marvellous, yet the sets look partly quite artificial. Masks are OK, but not as good as in 1992. The musical score solid, yet not remarkable. Combat and sword fight scenes solid again, but nothing special. CGI is, well, CGI-y. Typical 2020s.