I can hardly believe that Bram Stoker’s Dracula, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, is nearly twenty years old (1992); but this flick stands far and above any of the Dracula movies that have appeared since.
If you have not seen this movie, you are in for the scare of your life. I would suggest that if you get creeped out by vampire flicks that you do not watch this movie alone or at night. That being said, here goes:
Bram Stoker’s Dracula is a fairly faithful adaptation of the 1897 classic. We find the Count (Gary Oldham) defending his country from the Turks in 1492 just after the fall of Constantinople. When he returns from the battle in which he has impaled many of his enemies (Vlad the Impaler) he finds that his wife had been tricked into thinking that the Count had been killed, and that she has committed suicide. The Count blames God for this act of treachery and in a fit of anger the evil one is born to walk the Earth forever.
Fast forward to late nineteenth century Victorian England where an accountant by the name of Jonathan Harker (a young Keeanu Reeves) is sent to Transylvania to cook the books on properties that the Count has purchased in London. He leaves his fiancé Mina (Winona Ryder), travels to Transylvania where he is picked up in a ghostly carriage, and is whisked away to the Count’s digs. Soon he finds himself a prisoner of the Count; but not without its perks: instead of a free continental breakfast, he gets a nightly ravaging by the Count’s concubines.
In the meantime the Count travels to London while sleeping in the comfort of his custom form-fitting box, for the sole purpose of seducing Mina. For appetizers Mina’s friend Lucy (Sadie Foster) is served up and when her entourage discovers her illness, the metaphysical expert Professor Van Helsing (Anthony Hopkins) is called in for diagnosis. (Hopkin’s performance as an over the top, pre-Hannibal Lector vampire killer, steals the show.) We all know where the story goes from here so I will cut it short.
I don’t know what the budget was for this movie but the costumes, make up, and special effects are out of this world (remember that we are talking twenty years ago). As I watched it last night with my wife by candle light in honor of Halloween, I was glad that I had some company: This is Creepy!
Word of warning: This is a sufficiently gory movie, with a not so pleasant Dracula, and some highly charged sexual scenes. The movie is definitely not for children.
My rating: 5 of 5 Impalings.