AmateurMovieReviews.com

With Halloween here, it seemed the right time to review a favorite horror movie or two. Francis Ford Coppola's "Bram Stoker's Dracula" is an opulent and sensual visual treat that recounts perhaps the most infamous horror villain of all time: Count Dracula. Movies about Dracula (or other vampires) have seized the imagination of pop culture for decades, starting with the incredible, black and white "Nosferatu" (a movie deserving of another review... but in a nutshell, if you haven't seen it, you should).

Coppola offers a slightly different take on everyone's favorite Transylvanian Count by posing the question: if one completely changes the central motivation of the main character, can one still claim that the movie is a faithful interpretation of the original text? Judging by the comments of critics, the answer is yes.

Cast

Dracula - Gary Oldman
Mina Murray - Winona Rider
Dr. Abraham Van Helsing - Anthony Hopkins
Jonathan Harker- Keanu Reeves
Dr. Jack Seward - Richard E. Grant
Lord Arthur Holmwood - Cary Elwes
Quincey P. Morris - Billy Campbell
Lucy Westenra - Sadie Frost
Renfield - Tom Waits
Dracula's Brides - Monica Bellucci, Michaela Bercu, and Florina Kendrick

Bram Stoker wrote what is considered by many to be the greatest horror novel of all time. A reclusive, wealthy aristocrat longs for the active lifestyle found in Victorian London. He hires a reputed law firm to aid him in his transcontinental move. However, his first assigned assistant suffers serious problems that impair his mental prowess, so young Jonathon Harker is sent to be England's ambassador to Transylvania's Count Dracula. However, Dracula is more than the eccentric individual that he appears to be: Dracula is actually a monstrous vampire, capable of sustaining his immortal life by draining the blood from his victims. Harker too falls victim to the monster's manipulation and is imprisoned within Dracula's castle with his discarded, vampiric brides while the Count travels to England to begin a deadly body count that includes those closest to Harker.

Gary Oldman, who has made a career of playing strange characters, plays the reclusive Count Dracula with a thick, almost indistinguishable accent. Oldman seems best when he is misfigured and covered with make-up; he is one of the few actors who can manage to not be lost by so many layers of makeup and prosthetics.

The movie follows much of the novel's plot and even borrows from the novel's format. While the entire novel is comprised of a collection of fictional diary entries, the movie uses diary entries and voice overs to narrate the action. However, the singular difference between Stoker's work and Coppola's movie adaptation is the role of love. In the book, Dracula does seduce and attack Mina, Harker's eventual wife, but the movie constructs an elaborate back story that connects these characters in a romantic history involving reincarnation and immortal love that is absent in the novel. Mina (played by Winona Rider, sporting a rather poor British accent) is an exact replica of Dracula's dead wife Elisabeta (also played by Rider), a tragic figure who threw herself into the river when she believed Dracula lost in a battle. Suicides are barred from entering heaven. Dracula's transformation into a vampire, which is never really explained in the original text, is caused by the church's damnation of Dracula's wife's soul. Consequently, Dracula forsakes his faith and his violent outbursts displeases God so much that he is damned as a vampire.

Much of the movie surrounds Dracula's aim to regain the love of the woman he believes to be his reincarnated dead wife. However, the Count's wooing of Mina continues through the major portions of the novel, including his attack and transformation of Mina's best friend, Lucy, into a vampire, the neighboring Dr. Seward's insane asylum which houses Dracula's first, unfortunate s