It is the year 1462, and Vlad Dracula has returned from a long, hard-fought battle to find that his wife Elisabeta, despondent over a false letter telling of her husband's demise, has committed suicide. Incensed over the fact that she is now most likely damned, Dracula defiles the chapel he stands in, renouncing the lord while swearing that he will rise embedded with the power of darkness on his side. Four centuries later, paralegal solicitor Jonathan Harker receives a request from a fellow colleague to take on one solitary, if not slightly unusual person as a client, and he travels to the land of Transylvania to meet with the mysterious individual. Upon arrival, "Count Dracula" greets Harker, but catches a glimpse of a photograph with the visage of Jonathan's fiancee, who bears an uncanny resemblance to his own long lost love, and whom he will do anything to reunite with.
Well, I'd like to say that I did indeed you silly ninnies. Though this certainly wouldn't be the only modernized update of a classic monster story to be released in the 1990s (Kenneth Branagh's adaptation of Frankenstein is something I will seek out one day), it was one of the first to expose my generation to the classic Dracula mythos and to paint him as a tragic villain, rather than that of an ungodly, evil beast. Its opening sets this in stone, with a quick backstory and voiceover that thankfully doesn't go on for too long, yet doesn't feel criminally short. Mind you, the narratives in Dracula are seen and heard in droves, to the point where it almost becomes comical or irritating. Of course, if you want to talk comical, most of Dracula's initial controversy came from its casting for the "lovebirds" that nearly every horror fan knows about: Jonathan Harker and Mina Murray. While Winona Ryder does a commendable job as the woman being pursued and seduced by the prince of darkness, she already had a good enough track record to ride off of, and had been established as a credible performer. As for Keanu Reeves? Well, despite some breakout roles in the likes of Point Break and My Own Private Idaho, this seemed like too large of a task for him to handle. Truth be told, I've always found the character of Harker to be a bit a bit on the bland side, but jeez, he should never be portrayed as a block of wood. Sadly, both players do noticeably suffer with being able to maintain a proper English accent, and it was no wonder that Mr. Reeves was the butt of numerous parodies through animation and live action programs of that decade. Perhaps if they had decided to tell Keanu at the last minute that him and Cary Elwes (The Princess Bride) were switching places, most of those would've never occurred.
However, somebody who can always persevere in even the lousiest or sketchiest of movies is the amazing Gary Oldman (The Professional, Harry Potter, The Dark Knight). It did shock me a tad to discover that the only award he seemed to receive for his representation was a Saturn Award, which is by no means an insult, but for anyone who can combine romanticism, creepiness, and sadness as well as Oldman did, it's still marginally baffling. He taunts and teases with the idea that vampirism and eternal life could be quite enchanting, but has to suddenly remember that it can be equally horrific, with the latter's painful effects permeating through the loud, anguished, and often erotic cries of transformation into something beyond human (relative unknown Sadie Frost does this to great effect as Lucy Westenra). Anthony Hopkins (The Silence Of The Lambs, Thor) also shows up as Abraham Van Helsing, the legendary archenemy to the strigoi. To say that he's good is to say that water is wet, and nothing more needs to be mentioned of it. Oh yeah, and it has musician Tom Waits as the mentally unstable Renfield. No, that wasn't a typo.
Hit or miss acting aside, what did draw me to Coppola's Dracula was ultimately the visual and technical aspects of the flick. The various forms of makeup and costuming that our count dons throughout the picture is a thing of beauty, enabling him to fully immerse himself in the role, no matter the situation. Many toasts should be given to the trio who worked on this aspect of the film, as their track records of such classics like The Howling, Edward Scissorhands, and Quest For Fire show that they were ready for the job. The set locations and designs of Transylvania and London are the pure definition of glamorized horror, proving to be equally eerie, strange, and compelling. Unfortunately, there are points where it feels like those who finalized these decisions were in love a little too much with their own ideas, but as they say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
I can see why Bram Stoker's Dracula divided so many moviegoers upon arrival in 1992. It's unexpectedly over-the-top at times, which is all the more shocking when you consider the track record of its director. Some of its casting borders on being called perplexing, and the final results reflect it. Still, I can't quite figure out why none of that bothered me a great deal by the time its two hour running time had ended. Perhaps it was my desire to see another truly engaging vampire film that I could one day add to my DVD or Blu-Ray collection? Or perhaps it was solely because of how god damn good Gary Oldman and Anthony Hopkins are in their roles of the antagonist and hero? In the end, I believe that the total package's positives FAR outweigh its negatives. And for that, I can cast no real ill feelings towards it. Bram Stoker's Dracula is currently available to stream for $2.99 on Amazon Prime, and can be purchased in assorted formats on home video.
For my closing comments, I leave you with this animated piece for what I assume was a proposed followup to this piece of nostalgia.
Tomorrow, Chris Griffin and Carlton Banks try to survive against mutated, bloodthirsty arachnids.......I sure know how to choose em.......
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