Directed by Francis Ford Coppola
Starring Gary Oldman, Winona Ryder, Anthony Hopkins and Keanu Reeves
Yeah. A Dracula flick. See that marquee up above? It's not just for decoration, people. I'm pretty much a slasher movie fan first and foremost, but I dig almost all types of horror. In the past few years, old-school Gothic horror has become something that I've gone from total apathy towards to a genuine affection for, but forget all that stuff that was designed to make me sound smart. Dracula rocks, and the movies featuring this character tend to be 100% sliced awesome. Amazingly enough, I am one of the few people on Earth who actually read the book before seeing ANY film adaptations, which has to be some kind of beautiful disaster miracle. I've said in the past that The Shining was the first truly adult novel that I ever read, and Dracula followed suit. The first film that I saw? The movie in question today, but I can't say that I wasn't damn intrigued about this one well before taping it off HBO ('memba that?).
A few years before reading that book, this movie was unleashed on the world. And I do mean unleashed. I was in third grade when this bomb dropped, and I was very intrigued by everything that I saw regarding this movie. Everything about it from the marketing to the buzz to the cast indicated that this flick was a big deal. And it was. This was Francis Ford Coppola's first movie after The Godfather Part III, and this is an example of the rare horror film with backing. A big budget, the most talented set and costume designers, a popular cast, you name it, this movie had the benefits. And it paid off. The flick was a HUGE international hit, grossing some $215 million dollars. It was also nominated for a few Oscars. And it featured the guy who played Hannibal Lecter ripping vampire girls' heads off. 25 years later, does it hold up? Well, allow me to be your ever-loyal reporter.
Now, this statement isn't absolute by any stretch, but out of all the Dracula films I've seen, the first thing you need to know about Bram Stoker's Dracula is that the title is accurate. It's VERY faithful to the book. It's not exactly a 100% translation, but it's closer than anything that came before. In short, you're not going to see Renfield laughing like an old Ford pickup in this one. The book was cool in that it was told in tons of different points of view, and almost always not from a straight narrative. It was journals and tapes and phonograph recordings that we were reading, and it lent the whole thing this almost documentary-like feel. The script here by James Hart tries to do the same thing, and it's mostly successful. It's in the specifics where this movie busts out its memorable stuff, some good, and a few of them not so good.
Just like the book, the movie begins with Jonathan Harker, a lawyer called to the castle of Count Dracula to preside over his purchase of a new home in London. If you've never read a review of this movie before, Harker is played by Keanu Reeves and...he's pretty bad. I actually like Keanu a lot as an actor, but he was so far out of his depth here trying to seem sophisticated and speak with a British accent. Fortunately, everything else about this movie is here to distract us here as we go into the castle. Still to this day, the set design in this flick is INCREDIBLE and the castle is the early star. Of course, it also has Gary Oldman...or rather, Gary Oldman in pure white makeup and a fright wig.
Yes, folks, Gary Oldman plays the Count in this film. He's an amazing actor, and he establishes this from his first scene on camera with Keanu "Dude"-ing his way through the Harker lines. The opening segments of the film detail Harker's incarceration in the castle, his meeting with Dracula's brides (and what a scene that is - it's a Patrick Bateman-esque undisputed masterpiece featuring certified ten-star hottie Monica Bellucci), and his various attempts at escape. There's also the connection that he has waiting for him back in London - namely, his fiance, Mina Murray.
With Harker stuck in the castle, the script launches (literally) to London where we meet all of the supporting characters in rapid-fire succession. With the exception of Winona Ryder, the casting is absolutely spot-on with all of these people. Sadie Frost as Lucy and especially Richard E. Grant as Dr. Seward are minor revelations here, but if you can name a character from the book, they're represented here and represented well. Cary Elwes is Arthur Holmwood, Billy Campbell is Quincey Morris, Tom Waits is Renfield, and then the guy that the whole movie was designed to put over like Roman Reigns, Anthony Hopkins as Dr. Van Helsing.
Amazingly, Hopkins' role in this film was supposed to lead to some kind of franchise featuring Van Helsing hunting monsters. It was also supposed to happen fairly quickly after the November, 1992 [i]Bram Stoker's Dracula[/i] release date. But this project was put on the back burner. Like, hard. For over a decade, it sat in development hell, to the point where we eventually got Van Helsing over a decade later with no connection to this film and with the goddamned Wolverine as the main character. Just like Oldman, Hopkins is simply awesome and he commits here with everything he has in him. Still...I'll take Peter Cushing over him. Call it glandular.
The middle sections of this film lose some momentum, ironically due to the thing that it deviates from the book in the most severe way. More than any other adaptation of Dracula, this film really was a dark, erotically-charged romance, all built around the idea that Mina is Dracula's former bride reincarnated. It's an interesting take on the story, I must say, but a lot of it is built on Mina being a compelling character. Ryder tries, but much like Keanu, she's no Gary Oldman, and a lot of their scenes together kind of fall flat.
Another thing worth commenting on here is all of the LOOKS that Dracula has in this film. Within the film's running time (and it's a long one - it goes on 2 1/2 hours, which is a very risky proposition for a horror film, but it just BARELY manages to feel justified for making us sit and watch a scary movie for that long), we see the gimpy old man from the opening sections, the handsome man that Oldman himself was at the time this movie was filmed, a bizarre "wolf man" creature, and whatever the hell he's supposed to be at the end as everyone comes hunting for him. Maybe it wouldn't be so jarring if all of it wasn't done SO WELL; while a couple of these visages are kind of misses in concept, they're major successes in execution. Coppola will forever get brownie points with me for one thing here, as he refused to use any CGI and did everything practically because he felt this would be much more authentic with the time period that the film was set in. The result? It's still a gorgeous movie to look at, while the 2004 Van Helsing looked outdated roughly three years after it came out. You can't beat practical effects, kids.
Now comes the segment of this review where I have to tell you what I liked and disliked in a bit more detail. It's kind of a difficult task. I will never NOT like a horror movie with such obvious love for its source material and attention to detail in this one. I enjoy the hell out of Bram Stoker's Dracula for how it looks and feels. Watching it a few days ago actually made me a little sad, because this was a magical time period when film-makers actually KNEW how to make an atmosphere and transport you to a different world. Within 18 months, we had this, Batman Returns and Jurassic Park. Shortly after this, CGI would take over, and while movies became much easier to make, they just lost that sense of wonderment that was present here. So ten stars to this flick for its ability to seem like an experience.
Where it doesn't hold up so well is in its actual story. It's SO rapid-fire and in-your-face that the whole thing doesn't exactly unfold. Following the story is really kind of jarring. And as I've already mentioned, the whole love story THING between Dracula and Mina just really isn't there. I get the impression that what screenwriter Hart was going for here was a big, powerful tear-jerker ending as the Count bites it (/horrible pun), but instead, it's just kind of there. Thus, while this movie does have the boast of being really faithful to the novel, from a storytelling standpoint, I'll take the first Hammer adaptation Horror of Dracula any day of the week over this one. And that film was pretty damn technically impressive for its time, too.
So...does this movie hold up? The answer is yes, and I give Bram Stoker's Dracula *** out of ****. Yeah, it's got its faults (dude), but Oldman, Hopkins, and Richard E. Grant at the top of their game AND ungodly sets and costumes? This one is still more than worth checking out.
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