Dracula: A Love Tale

“He loves you, but would he renounce God and search the world for you?" If that sounds like a romantasy reader’s dream, it’s what Luc Besson delivers in Dracula: A Love Tale. It looks good in a best use of a Netflix budget way and the actors elevate the material but once in a story like this I’d like Dracula to turn up and watch Mina drive a sword through him.

In this version like so many others Mina spends the movie being the fiancée of a lawyer or the concubine of a monster. If she has any other drives or interests, the movie isn’t interested in showing them. The moment her love from a prior life shows up she’s all in. Meanwhile Dracula has debased himself and become a grotty foul thing in the intervening centuries. A parasite that feeds on her and calls that love. Yet Mina runs towards him, not away.

Stoker’s 1897 Mina never betrays Jonathan. She resists Dracula and actively works to destroy him. Somehow the 19th-century version understood female empowerment better than we do in 2025.

For a small movie this is well made. Besson’s most creative period is behind him but he’s a good craftsman. If you’re looking for a tragic love story focusing on the spiritual connection of two doomed lovers through the centuries this is a good movie for you. But for horror, action or anything else? This offers a viewer nothing. There are some beautifully shot scenes in this, especially in the first 15 minutes, but after two hours of running time it inspired nothing in me. 🎬