Just a year ago we had [Nosferatu](/reviews/director_of_nosferatu___2024___needs_to_calm_down_with_the_von_trierian_technique_or_i_will_not_trust_him_anymore) by [Robert Eggers](). A truly horrid type of a horror film, based on the story of Dracula. A real cinematic treat for the fans of horror. But then suddenly in 2025 [Luc Besson]() was just like... "Hey, I also made a *Dracula* movie". At first I was skeptical about it. Why would Luc Besson care about some horror tale? But after finally seeing it I must tell: This movie has more to do with [Guillermo del Toro]()'s [Frankenstein](/reviews/frankenstein_2025_is..._wow..._just_wow_) than Nosferatu. And I am not just talking about [Christoph Waltz]() here...

While Robert Eggers had a proper attempt at making a true, real, horror film out of his version of the story, Luc Besson's film is not a horror film at all. He does play with horror elements here and there, but on the whole, the film feels ( aesthetically speaking ) no scarier than his [Les Aventures extraordinaires d'Adèle Blanc-Sec](/reviews/how_didn_t_i_know_about_les_aventures_extraordinaires_d_ad_le_blanc-sec_) ( which is roughly as scary as something *Indiana Jones* ).

What Luc Besson does instead, is that he flips the story on its head. Making the Dracula in this version, not a monster that the protagonists need to kill, but the hero of the story. Count Dracula, played ingeniously by [Caleb Landry Jones](), in this movie, is the protagonist. And the story's emotional weight holds on his personal emotional arc. In a way it is very similar to what Guillermo del Toro did with his version of Frankenstein that coincidentally came out the same year and coincidentally also stars Christoph Waltz.

Watching it now, for the first time ( I will be watching it again ), I counted at least 3 specific references to Besson's other film [Leon: The Professional](/reviews/Leon_The_Professional). First, one of the girls that Dracula "seduces" into becoming a vampire is played by an actress named [Matilda De Angelis](). If you remember, in *Leon* one of the two main leads is Matilda. Then we have a very interesting moment. Count Dracula says this line:

> Count Dracula, at your service.

For those unfamiliar with *Leon* this line would mean nothing. But if you are familiar with *Leon* and with the 1992 Dracula movie by [Francis Ford Coppola]() you will get the reference. In the 1992 movie, Dracula is played by Sir [Gary Oldman]() who plays the bad guy in *Leon* named Norman Stansfield. This Stansfield guy has a catch phrase. He says:

> At your service.

This one line of dialogue, by Besson, is a double cinematic reference. And also, which is important for this discussion, a reference to *Leon*. Now, I do see a triple reference here, given that the line is spoken by Caleb Landry Jones who proves to be, at least for Besson, the next Gary Oldman. But for the sake of my argument, let's focus on the fact that it is a reference to *Leon*.

![Same knife shot in both Leon and Dracula](/pictures/user_upload/blenderdumbass/leon_vs_dracula_knife.jpg)

And then there is this. A recreation of a very memorable shot from *Leon*. Now here, I think the thematic through-line crystallizes itself. The one holding the knife in the *Dracula* movie is Count Dracula. The holding the knife in *Leon* is Leon.

We all know the plot of Dracula. There are no spoilers there. We've seen countless iterations. So I suppose I can analyze the version by Besson as is. Without fearing that you haven't seen the film. So let's do that. If you have not seen ( by some miracle ) any of the versions of Dracula, I suppose, spoilers ahead.

What is the story of Dracula, in a nutshell? It is a guy who fought bloody wars a very long time ago. He was madly in-love with a woman who was killed. That loss, with his blood thirsty nature made him forgo God himself, which in turn cursed him into eternal, literal blood-lust. He became a vampire. A vampire that is desperately looking for his beloved woman to re-incarnate. So she does. A young girl that bares striking resemblance to the original woman is found by Dracula. He seduces her, to be his. She becomes his. And then he is defeated by the hero.

In the 1992 version there is a strong psycho-sexual tension in the air. Dracula is first and foremost a seducer. His presence unlocks a hidden lust in the women around. For the people in the 1890s ( when the story was originally written ), such lust was a sign of "hysteria". For a woman to be lustful, was seen, utterly inappropriate. So the original book and the 1992 version view this lustfullness as an undesirable, scary, side-effect. Dracula uses his dark magic to "corrupt" the young girls. To poison their mind. The backstory of his trauma only explains his motivation. But does not justify them. In the end of the day, he is a bad guy for doing what he is doing. And the woman he seeks to so much, when cured from his curse, must then return to her "true love", or the hero of the story.

The 2024 Robert Eggers film *Nosferatu* is doing a similar thing, but with a modern 21 century spin and a lot more horror elements. The movie is about this "hysteria". It is about this dark sexual magic. But it is also about gross shit and scary deaths and stuff.

Luc Besson on the other hand, spins the whole thing around, in a clever, kind of way. If any other film would introduce Dracula as this intimidating character. Would build a bunch of suspense before you see him for the first time. Luc Besson doesn't do that at all. The first thing we see is young Dracula, before the curse, madly in love with his Elisabeta ( [Zoë Bleu]() ). We actually spend quite some time with them madly in-love before we get to the battle and the tragedy that is only told in flashbacks in 1992 film. And that is all but almost absent from *Nosferatu*.

Here is an interesting thing, which could be another thing that ties this movie to *Leon*. In the 1992 version Elisabeta is played by [Winona Ryder]() who is known to be Jewish. Zoë Bleu ( who plays Elisabeta in Besson's version ) also seems to be from a Jewish family. And who else is also Jewish? That's right... [Natalie Portman]() who plays Matilda in *Leon*.

I think that Elisabeta in this film stands for Matilda and Dracula stands for *Leon*. Think about it: She is a reincarnation of a woman who is long gone. So she is a young girl now, while the guy who is madly in-love with her is like 400 years older than her. It is an exaggeration of the same dynamic as in *Leon*.

Does Dracula in this film use black magic to seduce women? Is this seduction thing a bad thing in this film? Well... In this particular movie it seems to be complicated.

Dracula does use a fragrance to attract people sexually. There is even a very fucked up, brilliant scene, where Dracula attracts a full crowd of nuns to feed on their blood. And they just all want to be with him, despite all of this. This is some of the same shit as with any other version of Dracula.

But here is the thing. When it comes to Mina ( the reincarnation of Elisabeta ) he isn't doing any of that. She suspects him, at one point, that he might have done something to her. But he doesn't. He doesn't need to use the fragrance, or some other magical bullshit on her, because she is in love with him. She has the same soul as Elisabeta. And even some of the her memories. She is naturally attracted to Count Dracula, because they are truly in-love.

In Luc Besson's Dracula the love between Dracula and Mina ( or Elisabeta ) is real and true and awesome. Luc Besson doesn't see any hysteria or any problem with their love. In his version, the tragedy is not the lust, but the fact that everybody else wants to stop said lust. *Leon* is kind of doing the same exact thing. The bad guy in *Leon* is a police officer. And the bad guy wants to do police officer stuff against our protagonists that are illegally in-love. This is how Luc Besson was seeing it in 1994. And that is how Luc Besson sees it now. Dracula and Mina are illegally in love. And when the "heroes" of the film are about to attack Dracula in the end, you are feeling the same kind of tension and the same kind of fear as when police ambushed Leon.

There is a thematic difference though. With Dracula, apart from love, you also have the vampire curse. Not the lust curse. Not the sexual hysteria. The blood-thirst. The vampire-shit. In *Leon*, Leon dies to carry out the wish of Matilda. To kill Stansfield. To kill the man who killer her family. Just so happens that the only way to do so in his situation, would be such that he also needs to die. In *Dracula*, Dracula realizes something similar. But something where there isn't a bad guy to blame. Something where the bad guy is he himself. She seduced him, to turn her into a vampire. But now he starts to realize that maybe this one action was actually a mistake. It's not her that had the hysteria. It was him. Did went a little too far with her. And the only way to free her from this curse, would be to kill himself. Not because the hero needs to kill the monster, to save the girl. But because the hero needs to save to save the girl. Because the hero is Dracula. And to save the girl, means to kill the monster...

On the other note... It is very strange that Besson didn't collaborate with [Éric Serra]() on the soundtrack of this film. Éric Serra did the soundtrack for most of Besson's films, including *Leon*. Instead he used [Danny Elfman](). I mean Danny Elfman is perfect for this kind of Gothic sounding stuff. He worked on a lot of [Tim Burton]() movies, who's style would be a good approximation of what Besson aimed to do with this movie. But is there a thematic reason for choosing specifically Danny Elfman? Apart from the obvious connection: I mean... Danny Elfman ( as the lead of a band named Oingo Boingo ) once written and performed a song that goes like this "I, I, I love... little girls, they make me feel so good..."

**Happy Hacking!!!**