Bram Stoker's Dracula movie review

Bram Stoker's Dracula was released in 1992, and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The screenplay was brought to Coppola by Winona Ryder, who would go on to star as Mina Murray (Harker), along side with Keanu Reeves as Johnathan Harker, Gary Oldman as Dracula, Anthony Hopkins as Prof. Abraham Van Helsing, Sadie Frost as Lucy, Tom Waits as Renfield, as well as other great actors including Cary Elwes as Sir Arthur Holmwood.

Bram Stoker's Dracula begins with the history of Dracula, who is based on the historical figure Vlad the Impailer, as he goes off to war to defend his nation from the vengeful Turks. When he returns home, it is found that his wife had received word that he was killed in battle, so she took her own life by jumping off a cliff into a river. Dracula upset by finding his wife Elisabeta dead declares that god is his enemy and that he will come back from death to avenge her death. So he stabs his sword into a cross which starts bleeding, and he drinks the blood from the cross, and becomes a vampire. Next we fast forward hundreds of years to the 19th Century, and begin with Johnathan Harker on his way to Dracula's castle in Transylvania to to take over for his predecessor Renfield who lost his mind and was committed to the Seward Sanitarium. Harker meets Dracula and is asked to stay for a month at the castle, though he is more of a prisoner than a guest at Dracula's castle. Meanwhile Mina is staying with her rich friend Lucy, and we meet Lucy's suitors. Then a large storm blows in a ship with a crew that had all died, and there is a wolf that escapes from the zoo. During the night of this storm and the arrival of the storm, Mina wakes up to find that Lucy is sleep walking, and she follows her through the hedge maze and finds her having sex with a beast, who we find is Dracula, and he sees Mina and hypnotizes her and tells her she can't see him. From this point on Lucy seems to have contracted a mysterious illness, where she seems to be losing her blood, which is why Van Helsing is brought into the story. Meanwhile back to Johnathan Harker, he ends up having a very erotic encounter with the brides of Dracula, who when Dracula leaves for England , he is left as a prisoner to Dracula's wives, who drain his blood to keep him weak. After time passes he finds his way out and escapes and is found by some nuns. Okay back to Mina, she meets this sexy and suave prince, who is Dracula who has become younger. She falls for him, and he for her because she is the reincarnation of Elisabita. They carry on a love affair, until she receives a letter from Johnathan asking her to come to him and be immediately married. While she is gone Lucy dies, and is entombed. Van Helsing tells the men that they need to go to her tomb and chop off her head and drive a stake through her heart. When they go to the tomb Lucy is not there. She arrives carrying a small child and they drive her into her casket, and chop off her head and drive a stake through her heart. When the Harkers arrive home, they are told about what happend, and it is decided that they need to hunt down Dracula and destroy him, while they are at Carfax Abby destroying Dracula's earthen boxes, Dracula goes to Mina's bed and she becomes his bride, he drinks her blood and and feeds her his blood. From here on out the movie basically goes into a very long chase scene where Dracula is fleeing home to his castle, and Harker, Van Helsing, and Lucy's suitors try to beat him there so that they can destroy him before he arrives back at his castle. This movie is the first Dracula movie to actually attempt to follow the actual story of the book, it is even told through diary, and journal entries as the book is. Though the movie does really focus on an undying love between Mina and Dracula which wasn't in the book, but other than that this is actually a pretty good adaptation of the book. This version is definitely a more sexual version of the story, and some parts are told through almost erotic dreams, the amazing Sadie Frost excelled in this department as the beautiful sexy red haired Lucy. The sets were also very beautifully done, using interesting techniques that gave it a darker almost dream-like feel to them. The movie was shot entirely on sound stages, and it added to this beautiful dark feeling that shooting on location would have lacked. I like how the costumes were a big part of every scene, and in Coppola's words, the costumes were the sets, and the sets are designed as backgrounds for the costumes. This all comes to beautiful effect and works so amazingly well for this movie. Speaking of effects, there are no cgi effects used in the making of this movie, in fact the effects were all either practical effects, or done using the same film effect techniques that were used in the early days of movies. The effects that were used were not all that different from those that were used in the original Universal Monster movies, and some techniques even dated back to the silent era, which are all but a forgotten art in today's era of film making. It is really quite fascinating the level of authenticity to the original era that went into the effects in this movie, and this amazing attention to detail is what makes Francis Ford Coppola the amazing director that he is. This movie actually has some of my favourite special effects, and the fact that they are all practical makes it even better. I think it is important to talk about the casting of this movie and the characters a bit. There is some great character development, and just some fantastic writing in general. I do think the actors need to be talked about a bit, because the heaviest criticism that this movie has received over the years has been directed at Keanu Reeves. First off Gary Oldman is an amazing Dracula, he is such a versatile actor that can play pretty much any role he is given exceptionally well. Also the beautiful Sadie Frost is absolutely perfectly cast as Lucy, she plays the role that she is given so absolutely perfectly. Winona Ryder also does an amazing job at playing Mina, she puts a lot of feeling into the character, and I could feel the emotion that the character expresses about her confusion with her love for Dracula and Harker. Of course Anthony Hopkins as Van Helsing, pretty much steals every scene he is in, he brings this amazing level of eccentricity to the role, and as always excels in pretty much any role he is given. Now let's discuss Keanu Reeves. The role of Johnathan Harker, is not a real exciting role, as the movie focuses more on Mina and Lucy, and the guys who do the actual vampire hunting, Harker joins there group a little later on, and never really fits in with the other guys because he wasn't there the whole time to build the relationship that the others have. So it was decided that the character who plays Johnathan needed to have a bit of sexiness and star power to help people to care about the character. Coppola wanted to cast Johnny Depp, and the role was developed with him in mind, and very late in the game, it was decided by the producers that an actor with more star power was needed, and that Johnny Depp was just too much of an unknown to draw the crowd, and it had to be someone who would draw the young women to the movie, so it was suggested by Winona Ryder that her friend Keanu Reeves should play the role, and they went with it, because at that point he was a rising star after the very successful Bill and Ted movies, and Point Break. The issue is though, that up to this point he had mostly played teenage surfer dude type characters, and as one critic said, it felt like Reeves was struggling to not end every line of dialogue with "dude". Many critics have also stated that Reeves was out of his element in this film, and that he was constantly upstaged by his co-stars. Many critics also attacked his attempt at a British accent. He was also criticized for being flat and not a dynamic character. Honestly these are all fair critiques, but I have watched this movie so many times over the years, as either this or the 1931 version is my favourite movie, and honestly I kind of feel that all of this negative critique heaped upon Reeves, was because it was the only real negative thing that anyone could find to say about the movie, and there always has be reason to criticize anything that is popular, because this was one of the biggest movies of 1992. Yes, I think that Reeves was cast for a role that he wasn't ready for yet at that time of his career, and yes he was pretty flat, but that is kind of the problem with the role itself, and why they tried to get an actor that would make people care about the character. I don't think that Reeves is truly as bad as the critics made him out to be, even though their critiques weren't wrong, but he didn't do a terrible job at playing Johnathan Harker, I have seen much worse acting, and I just don't have a problem with him in this role. It is important to in your mind separate Keanu Reeves from his earlier roles, which for younger audiences getting into this movie now after seeing him in much more serious movies, shouldn't have a problem doing, but if you go into this only knowing him from Bill and Ted or Point Break, you are going to have a hard time seeing him as the serious Johnathan Harker. Would I recommend this movie? Yes, without a shadow of a doubt I think that this is a must see movie, it is a beautiful dark gothic romance, and walks the line between gothic fantasy and horror. Few times in the history of film making have there been such a beautiful movie made as this and the original 1931 version of Dracula. This movie even had comic books and trading cards put out by Topps back in the day, this movie was really a big deal when it was released for a very good reason, as it is one of the best movies ever made. I only wish i could have experienced it in the theater when it was released, but I was only 12 at the time, and didn't watch it until my mom and I watched it together when it was released on cable, we watched it many times together and even bought it on VHS, my mother and I always loved vampire movies, and this was one of our favourites. I appreciate that when I was younger my mom never censored out violent or sexual images when we watched movies, we were always open about things, which I believe is how a good parent should be, but enough about me, just go watch this movie, it is so absolutely amazing.