Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)

There have been countless renditions of Bram Stoker’s brilliant novel in film, stage and television. There have been easily just as many movies made about other vampires but there’s no denying that Dracula is the granddaddy of the genre. This makes it a challenge to adapt the story to the big screen. Not only will any new version of Dracula be compared to what has come before, but it will also be scrutinized for its treatment of a literary classic. You would assume that putting such a project into the hands of a respected filmmaker like Francis Ford Coppola would be a good thing. As it turns out, Bram Stoker’s Dracula goes to show you just what happens when you assume…

In the 15th Century, Vlad Dracula (Gary Oldman) leads his Hungarian army against the Turks. During the battle, his wife is told that he has died and she commits suicide. Incensed that the Holy Roman Empire considers her damned for eternity for taking her own life, he renounces God and swears to use the powers of darkness to rise from the dead. Over four hundred years later, an unassuming British law clerk named Jonathan Harker (Keanu Reeves) finds himself assisting what he thinks to be an old, Hungarian Count close a purchase in the heart of London so he can move from his castle in Transylvania.

As it turns out, the Count is actually Dracula, now a vampire and hungry for blood. The Transylvania natives were getting wise to his antics and his food supply was running thin. While making the move to London, Dracula discovers that Harker’s fiancée Mina (Winona Ryder) is the reincarnation of his wife. Strange things begin to happen in London and, when one of Mina’s friends develops a peculiar illness, a doctor calls upon an old friend for help. Dr. Abraham Van Helsing (Anthony Hopkins) recognizes the strange events and illnesses as the signs of a vampire in their midst. Rallying Harker and his friends, Van Helsing devises a plan to hunt down and destroy the monster before it can ruin any more lives.

I’ll admit that two paragraphs does a poor job of laying out the plot of this film but two paragraphs is all I really give to descriptions most of the time. There is more to it and the plot is far more convoluted than I make it seem. In fact, Coppola’s film makes the intricately-weaved story even more complex than Bram Stoker probably ever intended it to be. The introduction of Dracula’s past and the whole element of him being a tortured soul are completely made up for this film. In the book, Mina is not a reincarnation of Dracula’s wife. In fact, there is no back story to Dracula in the novel. He is merely a former ruler who has been transformed into a bloodthirsty monster.

This version of Dracula was ahead of his time. Back in the early 90s it was still okay for bad guys to just be bad guys. As the decade wore on and into the 2000s it became almost mandatory that villains have a reason for what they do. It’s no longer good enough for someone to simply be pure evil. Now they must have some kind of relationship issue, chemical imbalance or childhood trauma that haunts them to this day. This has ruined many a good villain over the last 15 years. Sometimes rationalizing a villain’s behavior makes sense but it’s okay for an audience to not sympathize with the bad guy once in a while.

The reason Dracula turns into a monster of the night may work for some but I found it pretty silly. Your wife kills herself over false information so you renounce God and vow to destroy your fellow human beings? Pardon me for asking, but isn’t that just a tad extreme? Mourning I can understand but embracing black magic counts as going off the deep end in my book. Dracula is far more menacing in the book, where he kills purely out of bloodlust and a desire to lord over people. It’s his nature to kill, not the effect of some sappy star-crossed lovers thing.

Dracula’s background aside, I find myself disagreeing with the majority of critics on this one. It seems that a lot of people liked this film. Sure, it may have more story to it than the Bela Lugosi original but Coppola and company try to cram too much of the Dracula story into the film. Having read the novel, I think that major revisions will be necessary for any film version. Only a mini-series would give all of the characters and plots enough time to develop. There are revisions, but Coppola is still trying to stuff about eight and a half pounds of crap into a five-pound bag. The drama could be heightened by slowing some of the action down, adding more brooding menace than quick scare tactics.

Vampire lore has almost always carried sexual undertones but I found this film to be over-sexualized. There’s nothing wrong with Dracula having an exotic charm to him- in fact, I would have been angry had they not made him appealing to the ladies. However, Dracula’s brides minions baring their breasts for Harker and seducing him into hedonistic trysts. Plus, at one point Dracula turns into something more resembling a werewolf than a bat-like creature and rapes a woman. Maybe I’m old school, but I prefer subtle sexuality in a film.

The acting in this film is also hit or miss. Basically all of the actors who naturally have accents are great but those who lack accents (Reeves & Ryder specifically) sound terrible when trying to affect the required British tones. Add to this the fact that I still have yet to see proof that Keanu Reeves can really act and you’ve got a mess. Gary Oldman is phenomenal as Dracula, stealing scene after scene (and why shouldn’t he?). Hopkins works as Van Helsing, though he didn’t play the role quite as I was expecting. The rest of the cast makes the film feel lopsided, with plenty of under- and over-acting.

Any production of Dracula is bound to make a fair amount of money. The Count’s story has been told dozens of times already and any new take on the classic is bound to draw some attention. I’m sure that the addition of a little more sex helped raise audience appeal in the early 90s as well, but I found myself very disappointed with this adaptation. Maybe a second viewing would change my opinion but I doubt it would help too much. I’m that opposed to viewing Dracula as a tragic lover.

RATING: 2 out of 5