On Hulu in August 2021 I watched Bram Stoker’s Dracula, I hadn’t seen it in ages. It still holds up as a gorgeous-looking ornate film using a lot of practical effects that look like CGI but aren’t, just use of miniatures and camera angles.
People get on Keanu Reeves for his bad British accent, but I felt like Billy Campbell’s Southern accent was terrible and he felt like such a useless character in the movie. Maybe he’s more important in the novel, but in the film he felt unnecessary.
Winona Ryder was perfectly cast and looked gorgeous in turn of the century clothing, despite being shaky with a British accent. She and Gary Oldman had great chemistry onscreen despite reportedly despising each other during filming, though in a later quote she said they became friends years later.
I loved how Sadie Frost just totally threw herself into playing Lucy, with full on horniness and vampiric possession and all, and that she was so convincing as a monster that the little girl who she has as a potential victim in a scene was terrified of her in real life and she and Coppola had to console her in order to do another take of their scene.
I liked Anthony Hopkins’ humor as Van Helsing, his matter of fact comments about cutting off Lucy’s head delivered in an unaffected business-like manner. Like this exchange:
Mina Harker: How did Lucy die? Was she in great pain?
Professor Abraham Van Helsing: Yeah, she was in great pain! Then we cut off her head, and drove a stake through her heart, and burned it, and then she found peace.
I remember this movie being a big deal when I was a kid. I loved the haunting Gothic movie poster, as well as The Simpsons parody with Burns as Dracula (which did take away some of the horror for me in this). As much as I like this film, I like its sister movie Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein even more, as a more bonkers movie with a really good quiet performance by Robert DeNiro contrasted with a hilariously overacting performance by Kenneth Branaugh.
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