Bram Stoker’s Dracula
Coppola’s only true foray into the horror genre is a masterpiece and will stand the test of time as the definitive telling of the story. On the techncal side, everything, directing, cinematography, costumes, set design, FX, makeup, sound, is top of the line and as perfect as can be. Coppola manages to bring a surreal edge to the material that reminds us this is the man that made Apocalypse Now, with some masterful editing that disorients the viewer yet helps to suck them in more. It’s amazing that this is the last great Coppola movie before he turned to shit. The cast is loaded with many great actors, with only Cary Elwes being pretty much wasted standing there with little to do (the film could have benefitted from having 5 to 10 more minutes just to develop his character more). Richard E. Grant does a fine job with Dr. Seward (he was a fine actor before he disappeared off the face of the earth), Bill Campbell is a breath of fresh air as the out of left field character Quincy The Texan (a character rarely, if ever, portrayed in previous adaptations), and Tom Waits makes the most of his limited screen time as the demented Renfield. Sadie Frost is quite fetching as Lucy, and makes us feel tremendous sympathy for her sad fate in an impressive turn. As for the leads, Oldman simply knocks it out of the park as Dracula, making the viewer feel empathy and revulsion in equal doses, and was again robbed of a well-deserved Oscar nom. Reeves as Harker is fairly flat in his early scenes (anyone else would be shitting their pants around Dracula and his narration even indicates that he is scared, yet Reeves seems merely bored) but his acting picks up as the movie goes on and in the end he carries it off well. Ryder is vapid and unlikable as Mina, but she too gets better as the film goes on and really gets interesting 3/4 of the way thru the film. Finally, there’s Hopkins as Van Helsing, acting up an eccentric storm and easily stealing every scene he’s in. The only time his performance goes too far and becomes self-indulgent is a scene where he literally dry-humps Quincy out of joy of figuring out who Dracula is. That scene coulda used a retake. However, when you add everything up, this is one of the greatest and most lavish horror epics ever, and actually quite underrated…
9/10