Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)

This is going to be one of those cases where I'm talking about a movie that I don't really care for but I know a lot of other people do. Let me set up how I came to see this movie. Remember in my review for Nosferatu where I mentioned a book that I read while I was a child that introduced me to that film? Well, it also showed images from this movie as well. I don't remember exactly what it said about the film but I do remember the images of the young Dracula breathing over Mina's body with his eyes glowing red and another photo showing the old Dracula at the beginning of the movie (I swear, I thought that was an old woman when I was a kid). Needless to say, since this was a modern, R-rated, violent and sexual vampire movie, it was off-limits to me at that age due to my parents and I wouldn't see the entire film until I was twenty save for some clips here and there (one being the scene where Van Helsing beheads Lucy's body). By the time I finally did see it, I'd heard some rather good things about it, particularly immense praise for Gary Oldman's performance as Dracula as well as for the visual style. So when I saw it, I was looking forward to it... and I was quite let down by it. I didn't make this an entry of Movies That Suck because this isn't one of those cases. Technically, this movie is very good but acting and story-wise, it's a disappointing mess in my opinion. This is simply, like I said, just one of those movies that I don't like but a majority of people do. Before you get your tar and feathers, allow me to explain what is good about the movie and to go into more detail about what I don't like.

Beginning with a prologue set in 1462, young warrior Vlad Dracula battles the Turks and is victorious but when he returns home, he discovers that his beloved wife has committed suicide after the Turks sent her a false report about his death. Heartbroken and furious when he is told that his wife's soul has been damned due to her suicide, Dracula renounces God and declares that he will rise from the grave to avenge her death with the powers of darkness. The movie then cuts to 1897 and from there, follows the story of the Bram Stoker novel: Jonathan Harker travels to Transylvania to close a real estate deal with Count Dracula but not long after he arrives, he discovers the count's true nature. Dracula leaves Harker at the mercy of his hungry brides while he travels to London via ship and upon arrival, curses Lucy Westenra with the bite of a vampire and proceeds to have a romantic affair with Harker's fiance Mina, whom Dracula believes to be the reincarnation of his own wife. Eventually, Dr. Abraham Van Helsing is summoned to deal with the ever worsening Lucy while Harker eventually manages to escape from Dracula's castle. From there, he eventually marries Mina and joins Van Helsing and the others in their quest to kill Dracula, with Mina hoping to give her beloved count peace in death.

Francis Ford Coppola needs no introduction. He directed some of the most beloved American films ever made, like The Godfather trilogy and Apocalypse Now. During the 1980's, however, Coppola's films, while still critically acclaimed, never quite achieved the success that his films in the 70's had. It was after The Godfather Part III that Coppola set his sights on making the most faithful film adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel that had ever been created. While Coppola had never made a horror film before, he seemed like a pretty good match given his filmmaking skills. Unfortunately, while I do give Coppola credit on certain things that I will go into greater detail about shortly, I do think he really missed the mark in a lot of areas. Even though he originally decided to do a straight adaptation of the book since no one had really quite done it before, he and screenwriter James V. Hart still took a lot of liberties with the adaptation. Also, as I will expound on, I think Coppola focused too much on the visuals and making the movie downright weird instead of telling a coherent story.

The fractured narrative of the movie really is my biggest problem with it and is what keeps me from enjoying it. I've never read Stoker's novel but from what I can gather, the book itself has quite a rambling and fractured storyline, told almost entirely through letters and diary entries. If that's the case, it makes sense to me why there's never been a thoroughly literal adaptation of it because it would turn out like this: weird and confusing. This movie just makes no damn sense and while its visuals are very impressive, I can't enjoy them if the narrative that goes along with them isn't cohesive. Now there are films that I do enjoy that are mainly visual and don't have much of a coherent story, like the films of Dario Argento but most of Argento's movies keep me interested throughout despite there not being much of a story and nothing makes sense. Besides, Argento has almost never tried to tell a well-known story like that of Dracula (which I find ironic in retrospect because I think he is making his own Dracula movie at this time). I went into this movie expecting a lavish, faithful adaptation of the Stoker novel that had some impressive visuals and what I got instead was a movie that has undeniably impressive visuals but whose story is clumsily told.

The stuff that Coppola puts into this movie is all over the place. He said that he felt that when you're in the presence of a vampire, the laws of physics don't work right. As a result, you have weird stuff like Dracula's shadow having a mind of its own, rats running upside down on ceiling rafters, and so forth. I would ask why he decided that but whatever. Only thing is that stuff get weird when Dracula is nowhere nearby, like when his shadow appears during the party that Mina is attending near the beginning of the movie and its hands seem to caress Mina's neck. How can he be doing that when he's thousands of miles away? Coppola said on the commentary for the movie that Dracula can manipulate things even when he's far away. So basically he's saying that Dracula can just do whatever he wants. I know we're talking about vampires here but this just makes the majority of the movie far too strange for me to get into. And for that matter, why do things suddenly get strange in that one outdoor scene with Van Helsing and the other men? Van Helsing is talking to them off-camera when suddenly the sound of his voice shifts from being right next to them to being on the other side of the yard. After that, he's gone and then suddenly appears behind a far away stone monument. How the hell did he pull that off? I can accept logic not existing when in the presence of Dracula and maybe even Dracula being able to influence things from far away but when you've got a normal person doing something like that, you're not playing fair. Are we to assume that Dracula's simply being nearby allows Van Helsing the ability to do the same kind of weirdness? Sorry but for the most part, I need some semblance of logic.

What I meant earlier by the narrative being messed up is that all the matte and photography effects really make the movie hard to follow for me. I know some people say the same thing about Ang Lee's Hulk, which is a movie that I like but after watching it many, many times, I can follow the story and get into it. This movie, on the other hard, loses me pretty early in. The going back and forth between one event being in motion while another is happening before that event completes itself, the constant random narrations (some of them being from letters and diary entries while others just come out nowhere), a lot of the dialogue not making much sense, etc. It's all too much for me. I guess what I'm trying to say is that this just wasn't a Dracula movie that was meant for me. Having grown up on the Universal movies and then seeing the Hammer films in my teens, I kind of wanted a true adaptation of the book that was still grounded like those films. Again, maybe the book itself is that weird, I don't know, but it's just not my idea of a Dracula movie from how I've come to know it. Besides that, I just find the movie to be really, really boring. It's a little over two hours long and I lose interest in it due to its weirdness very early on, making it excruciating for me to get through. So that, in a nutshell, is my biggest problem with the movie.

My other major problem with the movie is the cast. Let's start with Dracula himself, played by Gary Oldman in a variety of different makeups to portray Dracula's ability to take many forms. Oldman is often lauded for his performance of a very sympathetic Dracula, the most sympathetic since Frank Langella's portrayal in the 1979 film. In this movie, Dracula is portrayed not as a loathsome, blood-sucking beast but as a tragic hero who turned to evil due to the loss of his beloved. What he wants is to love again and be reunited with his beloved through her reincarnation in Mina. Coppola and Hart also make Stoker's fictional character and the real life Vlad Dracula one and the same. So to sum it up, this is a very ambitious characterization of Dracula, an attempt to take him from damnation to redemption and show the man behind the monster. A lot rested on Gary Oldman to pull off the performance and many seem to think he did a good job. However, I feel that the attempt to create this tragic portrayal is hindered by the fact that Oldman's acting is very... hammy. I know I'm going to get a lot of hate for this but I just found Oldman to be acting like an overblown Shakespearean stage performer. His over the top gestures, bizarre and constantly changing appearance, and thick Hungarian accent really distracted me from being able to connect with Dracula and feel pity for him. Speaking of that accent, I just can't help but think he's trying to sound like Bela Lugosi while he's doing that. I know, I know, typical arrogant American way of thinking about the character but it's the honest truth. I never found him to be that scary either because the way he looks is usually too silly and overdone. In my opinion, Lugosi and Christopher Lee were the best at making Dracula scary and Frank Langella was the best at playing him in a sympathetic light. Oldman just didn't impress me. Please don't bash on me if you loved his performance.

Winona Ryder also doesn't cut it for me as Mina. She was the one that brought the script to Coppola and he cast her so they could reconnect after falling out over The Godfather Part III. I just really couldn't get into her as a young Victorian era lady. Her accent was the most distracting. It just sounded like a caricature to me. Also, she doesn't register that much emotion either and her voice is almost always in the same monotone level with that accent making it worse. But if you want to talk about monotone acting, let's get onto Keanu Reeves as Jonathan Harker. I just want to say that I despise Keanu Reeves. I don't know who told that guy he's a movie star because he is one of the most wooden, boring actors ever to blight the silver screen. Reeves has tried to blame his lackluster performance in this movie on him being exhausted at the time from doing so many movies back to back but I'm not letting that slide because he's almost always emotionless and wooden with no energy. Even when he's being molested by Dracula's brides or sees something horrifying, he's still as monotone as ever. Not only does that hurt the character but that British accent he puts on is just atrocious. You can just hear his normal surfer dude-type voice clashing with the accent he's trying to pull off. (What kills me even more is that the following year, he was cast in Kenneth Branagh's adaptation of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. Would people please stop putting him in movies where he has to do an English accent? He sucks!) Fortunately, most people who like this movie agree that Reeves is a huge weakness and even Coppola regrets casting him, saying that he only put him in because he needed a big name to draw in the young crowds. Bottom line, Keanu Reeves blows in this movie and all other movies.

Prof. Van Helsing is played by Anthony Hopkins, who was now a hot commodity in Hollywood after he won the Oscar for playing Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs. I will admit that I do kind of like him because, well, it's Anthony Hopkins, who's always awesome. At the same time, like everything else in this movie, he's a little too weird. Coppola said that he felt that somebody who had pursued vampires all his life would probably be a little crazy. That is true. Van Helsing has always been portrayed as being a little eccentric. Edward Van Sloan in the Bela Lugosi Dracula and Peter Cushing in the Hammer films (even the throwaway Van Helsing like character in Nosferatu), while being noble doctors determined to save the world from the evil of Dracula, did have odd little quirks here and there. But note that I said little quirks. Hopkins is completely bonkers in this movie and like everyone and everything else, is so strange that I have a hard time relating to it. And yet, like I said, I am sort of able to enjoy the actor, even if I can't get into the character (in other words, I'm really torn about this character). While we're on the subject of Hopkins, I also want to add that he plays too many characters in this film. I'm not talking about the priest he plays in the opening prologue (I didn't even know that was him for a long time). I'm talking about all of his random narrations. I accepted his narration of the prologue because in retrospect, I just assume that Van Helsing is telling the story. However, he also narrates the captain's log of the ship that brings Dracula to England (again, I can assume that that is simply Van Helsing reading the log in retrospect) but then, his voice randomly pops up to inform us that vampires can move about in the day time. I can accept that he's telling the audience the story of the prologue and I can even accept that he as Van Helsing is reading the ship's log but that one brief bit of narration comes out of nowhere. Why did he suddenly pop back up as the narrator after not being heard in that way since the prologue. This just adds to the confusion of the film's narrative for me.

I did kind of like Sadie Frost as Lucy Westenra, Mina's overtly sexual friend whom Dracula turns into a vampire. I did think she was a believable free-spirit and a nice compliment to Winona Ryder's drab Mina (I understand why Mina secretly wishes to be like Lucy because, despite her flamboyance, Lucy is a hoot to be around). I did appreciate the fact that even though she teases Mina for her lack of sexuality with Harker, she does truly care for her friend and wants her to be happy with Harker. I also did think she was quite freaky when she becomes a vampire, particularly when she's seen carrying a crying little girl down into the her crypt so she can drink her blood. So, yes, I did like this film's version of Lucy.

I kind of thought the rest of the main cast was a bit wasted. Richard E. Grant did what he had to do with the young Dr. Jack Seward (whom I didn't know was Seward until he was named because he's so young) who is enfatuated with Lucy. It's also hinted at that he has a bit of a drug problem but it's not expounded on. I do like the one big scene between him and Renfield and that he does genuinely care for Lucy even after she pledges her love to another. Still, I felt like Grant didn't have much to do. Cary Elwes is an actor whom I always enjoy watching but I thought he was kind of wasted as well in his role of Arthur Holmwood, who becomes Lucy's fiance. He doesn't have much to do other than play the skeptical fiance who argues with Van Helsing's methods and feels simply along for the ride when the group travels to Transylvania to kill Dracula. I also kind of enjoyed Bill Campbell as the stereotypical Texan Quincey Morris whom Lucy flirts with (and whom Lucy uses to tease Mina at one point by acting like the big knife he carries with him is his penis) but like Holmwood, I felt he was just along for the ride during the final act of the movie. Finally, there's Tom Waits as Renfield and even though he's really over the top like everything, I felt this was an instance where it did suit this creepy, disgusting character who eats insects. The way he looked, sounded, and worshipped Dracula really suited the character well and I did think the scene where he meets Mina and is touched by her was sincere (although you have to wonder if he meant what he said or if he truly is jealous of Mina because Dracula is going to give her eternal life and not him but then again, Renfield has usually been portrayed as being schizophrenic). It's a shame that he's locked up in the asylum for the entire film and doesn't take part in the actual story because I would have liked to see more of him.

As much as they tend to make the story hard to follow, the visuals in this film are very well done and impressive. The overtly stylized nature of the movie is beautiful to look at and I will say that Coppola is adept at painting with visuals. When you realize that there were no computer effects used, it's all the more amazing. The scene transition from the peacock feather to the inside of a train tunnel and the image of Dracula's eyes on the red sky is quite a sight to behold. I also thought the claw-shaped lightning bolt that appears at one point was cool and the odd-shot where the demonic carriage driver's arm seems to stretch out and place Harker in the carriage had me scratching my head and it floored when I discovered how simply it was accomplished. There are also little things that one doesn't notice like when Dracula's hand comes up to Harker's shoulder from behind him while he's shaving and if you look, you notice that the hand casts no reflection. I've already mentioned how Dracula's shadow (and Harker's, for that matter) appears to have a life all its own and there are some scenes where Dracula appears to float instead of walk. The part where Dracula's brides literally emerge out of the sheets and mattress of the bed is also very impressive. Again, when you discover that all these effects (including the rats running upside down on the ceiling rafters and water dripping upwards) were achieved with no computers whatsoever, it really is astonishing. When it comes to effects work, I do feel that studios should take a page from this film and realize that they don't need CGI to make something spectacular.

Besides the effects, the film itself just looks great. First, the sets are fantastic (although it didn't win, the art direction was nominated for an Oscar) and beautifully designed, as are the costumes (which did win an Oscar). There are also really impressive matte shots like that of Dracula's castle and the design of Transylvania does look beautiful, with the blood-red sunset coloring the sky. I've always liked the look of the finale with the red sky and the snow. It truly does have a fairy tale feel to it. The POV shots of Dracula in his beastly form are also interesting to look at, as is the silhouette shot of Dracula battling and impaling the Turks in the prologue. The colors of the film are also very vivid and pleasing to the eye. Naturally, the color red plays a big part in it but I also the green color of the mist that Dracula becomes at certain points. The only visual part of the movie I don't care for is the section that looks like what you would see in an old, hand-cranked camera when Dracula first appears in London during the daytime. I know what Coppola was trying to express, that it ties in with the turn of the century film that Dracula and Mina later see at a science fair but I just don't get why you would put that in the film's actual context. It just makes the movie more confusing and bizarre. I guess it wasn't a huge problem since it lasts less than a minute but I just find it to be distracting. Other than that, I can safely say that, despite all my complaints, Bram Stoker's Dracula is truly a beautiful film to look at.

Dracula takes many different forms throughout the movie and the makeup design by Greg Cannom for those various forms won the movie a third Oscar. Some of the makeups I like, others I'm not so sure about. Obviously during the prologue and when Dracula becomes a young, suave man, it's just Gary Oldman with some wigs and a shaved hairline (to make him resemble paintings of the real Vlad Dracula). Let's talk about the image of Dracula that everyone remembers from this movie and that's the old form that Harker meets at the castle. I've always found this form to be really overdone and silly looking. I know that in the Stoker novel, Dracula first appears as an old man but from what I can gather, he's described as simply being pale with a white mustache and clad completely in black. He's also described as not being particularly good looking but at the same time, he's not over the top and bizarre looking in his ugliness as he is in the film. If I was Harker, I would have died laughing if that had appeared to greet me at the castle door. Speaking of which, they never explain how he becomes young. I know in the novel that he becomes young due to the blood he drinks but the only time he drinks a fair amount of blood before appearing in the London streets is when he drinks some of Lucy's blood. Did that make him look younger when he returned to his human form? Also, he loses his good-looking young form when he reads Mina's letter that she can't see him anymore. Does it change with his emotions? Does it take a lot of willpower for him to remain young? Maybe I'm just overly nitpicking but this stuff does make me scratch my head.

There's an interesting image of Dracula in his coffin where he looks to be encased in a slimy, jelly-like substance. As with most things in this movie, I don't get what that has to do with anything but it is interesting. I do like how Dracula looks in his wolf-form. That's such a bizarre, werewolf-like form that I do find it cool. I also do think the gargoyle form he takes when Van Helsing and the others burst in on him attempting to turn Mina into a vampire is impressive as well. Remember what I said in my Nosferatu review about Count Orlok perhaps being an incarnation of the Black Death and the rats that appear in his coffins are possibly another form of his? Coppola seems to have taken that to heart with Dracula because he changes from his gargoyle form to a bunch of rats in order to escape from Van Helsing. For the rest of the movie until his death and redemption at the end, Dracula has a strange demonic that is kind of similar to the face he had in his wolf form but without all the fur. It's interesting and I think it's meant to signify that by this point, Dracula has been weakened and can no longer take any of his other forms, revealing his true form as a vampire. So, all in all, I do find Dracula's various forms interesting and it does keep you on your toes if you're expecting the typical tuxedo and black cape wearing image.

Even though this film is advertized as being one of the truest adaptations of the Bram Stoker novel, Coppola and Hart still took a lot of liberties with it. The biggest addition is the subplot of Mina being the reincarnation of Dracula's deceased wife and the romance the two of them have. As I've said, I get that Coppola wanted to create a more sympathetic portrait of Dracula but why then did he bother announcing that he was going to do a truer adaptation of the book and then decide to do that (I'm not sure but I think I've heard that Dracula isn't that sympathetic in the book and in fact, actually traumatizes Mina)? Another big addition is the combining of the fictional vampire and his real life namesake. Stoker had come up with the idea for a vampire story long before he found out that there was a real man named Dracula and he decided to give his vampire that name. This film takes the real Vlad Dracula (who did torture and impale people as seen in the film although I'm not sure if he actually drank blood) and turns him into the literary vampire character. There are other smaller differences like Harker being Renfield's replacement (which wasn't in the book), the way Dracula actually dies at the end, the nature of the creatures that Dracula can become, how Dracula's brides come to Harker, etc. These are minor when compared to the major story changes. While it doesn't mean much to me personally since I've never read the book, it feels like Coppola couldn't decide whether he wanted to make a true adaptation of the book, a mixing of the book with pop-culture Dracula traditions and new concepts, or just an overly stylized, bizarre vampire movie.

The music score by Wojciech Kilar is... okay. I don't find it to be impressive or downright horrible but I do think that it does suit the film. The scary music, the romantic music, etc., they do their jobs but it's not music I would listen to on a general basis. What gets me is that I know I've heard the music that plays at the start of the ending credits over something that wasn't related to Columbia Pictures at all (that must have cost a pretty penny). I can't say I like Love Song for a Vampire by Annie Lennox that plays over the majority of the ending credits. That just sounds so corny and sappy to me plus I just don't like the way it sounds. Sorry if I sound like I'm just picking on the movie by this point but that's how I feel.

Bram Stoker's Dracula is a frustrating movie for me. It's one that I sincerely wanted to like but I just can't. While I do agree that it's visually stunning on many levels, on the whole I find it to be an overblown, confusing, overly bizarre, and downright boring film with hammy or wooden performances and a story that can't decide whether it wants to be true to the source material or be a mixture of it and the pop-culture aspects of Dracula (I have heard that it was called Bram Stoker's Dracula so as not to cause legal problems with Universal but I did hear Coppola say at one point that he couldn't believe no one had ever done the book, which seems to say that that was his original intent). I guess what it boils down to is that this wasn't a movie that was made for me. It's not the type of Dracula movie I grew up with and am accustomed to and while I try to put that aside and enjoy it for what it is, it's just too bizarre and confusing for me to do so. I know a lot of people love this movie and that's cool but it's just not my bag.