“Bram Stoker’s Dracula” (1992)

Bram Stoker’s Dracula

Grade: C+

Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula is one of the most perplexing movies ever made, one that is filled with narrative dead-ends, wonderfully strange imagery and off-color acting. Is it an accidental avant-garde masterpiece or a complete failure of epic proportions? One thing’s for certain: it’s not a good film, by any means, but it’s still worth watching (and re-watching) as a Colin’s Review Guilty Pleasure.

Directing:

First thing’s first: every single frame of Bram Stoker’s Dracula is visually interesting. But like all aspects of this damned film, the definition of “interesting” is stretched in all directions. The ornate settings are breathtakingly elegant in one scene and laughably cheap in the next. The special effects range from nightmarishly realistic to bewilderingly low quality. The costume design is both impressively detailed and hilariously poor. The match-cut transitions are incredibly artful yet frustratingly overused. And so on, and so forth.

It’s as if Coppola has put anything and everything that crosses his mind into this film. From German expressionist homage to American western wannabe to uncomfortable softcore porno to austere posh melodrama, Bram Stoker’s Dracula runs the gamut of cinematic influences, good and bad. But because I don’t believe Coppola is intending to make a postmodern pastiche, the overall effect is baffling. Even though he is one of America’s most talented directors ever, nearly every artistic decision here will make you ask, “What the hell is he thinking?” Or, simpler yet: “Why?”

Acting:

The over-the-top acting has been well-documented, with Keanu Reeves (playing Jonathan Harker) giving the most hilariously out-of-place performance in film history. But he’s not the only culprit: Winona Ryder (as Mina Murray) lacks chemistry with every member of the cast, Anthony Hopkins (as Dr. Abraham Van Helsing) thinks he’s in a comedy for some reason, and Gary Oldman‘s Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula is fully committed yet hard to take seriously because of his overblown costuming. Just like with Coppola’s directing, the acting is lurid in the strangest ways.

Writing:

Everyone knows the story of Dracula. But if for some reason this film was your first exposure to the most famous of all vampire stories, you’d have no idea what’s going on. James V. Hart’s screenplay undergoes so many unnecessary tonal shifts (what’s with the scene of Mina and her friend, Lucy, reading the Kama Sutra?) and narrative dead ends (why does Keanu disappear for 40 minutes right in the middle of the movie?) that it’s hard to keep track of the plot no matter how well versed you are with Stoker’s novel.

Music:

Polish classical composer Wojciech Kilar’s soundtrack is consistently beautiful. In fact, it’s the only authentic element in the entire movie. Kilar’s music hits the right emotional beats at the right times.

Ending (SPOILERS):

It’s not as if Bram Stoker’s Dracula reaches a point of no return where the bizarreness suddenly stops; Coppola just keeps getting weirder and weirder until the bitter end. The film’s conclusion, which features an extended chase sequence and too many terrible special effects to count, is even more bewildering than what came before. Through it all, Coppola’s artistic intentions remain unclear: Was the film anti-God? Were we supposed to feel sympathy for Vlad the Impaler? How many peyote buttons did Coppola ingest throughout the production process? Don’t bother asking, because there ain’t no answers.

“Yah. Nosferatu.” — Dr. Abraham Van Helsing

Why Bram Stoker’s Dracula gets a C+

By all laws of storytelling and mainstream filmmaking convention, this film should garner no higher than a C-. But I’m willing to give Coppola — the director of The Godfather, The Godfather Part II and Apocalypse Now, might I remind you — the benefit of the doubt, hence the higher grade. If nothing else, it’s a highly entertaining film for all the wrong reasons.

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