Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)

"...the sumptuously mounted film is always a visual treat for the eye.  Emanuel Levy, EmanuelLevy.Com
"Woozy, flamboyant, and unforgettable...  Nick Davis, Nick's Flick Picks
"...stylized, psychedelicized...  Raoul Hernandez, Austin Chronicle

Editor's Note A seductive retelling of the legendary tale, BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA is Francis Ford Coppola's opulent, erotic, blood-filled feast. Count Dracula (played with irresistible intensity by Gary Oldman) reunites with his soul mate, Mina (Winona Ryder), after four centuries. Mina's friend Lucy (Sadie Frost) succumbs to the deadly bite of Dracula while Renfield (Tom Waits), locked in an asylum, eagerly waits for his master's return. Mina's fiancé, Jonathan Harker (Keanu Reeves), with the help of the eccentric Professor Van Helsing (Anthony Hopkins), attempts to save Mina's life and soul before she can become Dracula's eternal bride. After Dracula attacks Mina's friend Lucy (Sadie Frost), Dr. Jack Seward (Richard E. Grant) calls in the legendary Professor Van Helsing (Anthony Hopkins) to cure Lucy's "disease of the blood." Jonathan escapes from the castle and he and Mina are married while Lucy dies and is resurrected as a vampire. When Dracula appears to Mina in her sleep, she declares her undying love for him. Professor Van Helsing, Jack Seward, and Lucy's fiancé, Arthur Holmwood (Cary Elwes), join Jonathan and travel to Transylvania to destroy Dracula, but Mina tries to save her tortured lover. Musician Tom Waits appears in the film as Renfield, a Victorian lunatic singing the praises of Dracula. Ornate costume design and lighting awash in shades of blood make this film a seductive and scary must-see. |In his version of the oft-told tale, Francis Ford Coppola takes Bram Stoker's archetypical horror story and accentuates the romantic angle. Blood still flows in large amounts, and Coppola opted to do all the eye-pleasing visual effects in-camera, utilizing shadow puppets, smoke, miniatures, and other time-honored tricks of the trade--creating a visual style not unlike that of a storybook come to life.

	Anthony Hopkins
	Cary Elwes
	Gary Oldman
	Keanu Reeves
	Monica Bellucci
	Richard E. Grant
	Tom Waits
	Winona Ryder
	Andrew Precht - Art Director
	Anne Goursaud, et. al. - Editor
	Bram Stoker - Based On Novel By
	Francis Ford Coppola - Producer
	Francis Ford Coppola - Director
	James V. Hart - Screenplay
	Michael Apted - Executive Producer
	Michael Ballhaus - Cinematographer
	Wojciech Kilar - Original Music By

Vlad the Impaler (Gary Oldman), a count and fierce warrior, goes off to fight in the Crusades. Falsely hearing of his death, his beloved wife Elisabeta kills herself. Upon returning home and finding her, Vlad renounces God and becomes Count Dracula, embracing Satan in exchange for immortality. Flash forward to 1897 London. Jonathan Harker (Keanu Reeves) leaves fiancée Mina (Winona Ryder) and journeys to Transylvania to meet Count Dracula (Gary Oldman) to complete a real estate transaction. After seeing a photo of Mina, whom he believes to be his wife reincarnated, Dracula keeps Jonathan as a prisoner in his castle while he travels to London to meet his long lost love. Sight and Sound
"...[Oldman gives a] virtuoso performance....A veritable hailstorm of visual effects, spectacular action sequences and literary, cinematic and artistic references..." 02/01/1993 p.42-3

USA Today
"...Florid opera wall-to-walled with blood and bizarre mating rituals, the beat is fast and you can bite to it..." -- 3 1/2 out of 4 stars 11/13/1992 p.1D

DVD Town 8 of 10
The first sequence in Dracula«s castle is really quite effective, with Dracula at this time a spooky old gentleman (topped with a coiffeur that later begged to be parodied by Mel Brooks). While it is somewhat silly, it is still fun if one suspends one«s disbelief and goes along for the ride..."Bram Stoker«s Dracula" is an old-fashioned monster movie on a grand scale, a Gothic horror spectacular in the best and, if you want to be cynical, the worst sense of the words. It«s weird, eerie, funny, thrilling, bizarre, and eccentric, filled with demonic rites, Christian symbolism, and erotic imagery; indeed, it is more sensual and sexy than any prior Dracula film has dared to be. Perhaps, above all, Coppola«s vision of "Dracula" is that of a romance. In fact, it may be as a love story that the film works best, and how this fact sits with diehard fright-flick fans will probably determine their ultimate reaction to it. - John J. Puccio

Chicago Sun-Times 8 of 10
The film is inspired by the original Bram Stoker novel, although the author's name is in the title for another reason (Another studio owns the rights to plain "Dracula"). It begins, as it should, with the tragic story of Vlad the Impaler, who went off to fight the Crusades and returned to find that his beloved wife, hearing he was dead, had killed herself. And not just killed herself, but hurled herself from a parapet to a stony doom far below, in one of the many spectacular shots which are the best part of this movie...Coppola directs with all the stops out, and the actors perform as if afraid they will not be audible in the other theaters of the multiplex. The sets are grand opera run riot - Gothic extravaganza intercut with the Victorian London of gaslights and fogbound streets, rogues in top hats and bad girls in bustiers...Oldman and Ryder and Hopkins pant with eagerness. The movie is an exercise in feverish excess, and for that if for little else, I enjoyed it. - Roger Ebert