Review of Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) by Spangle — 17 Sep 2017

A truly horrifying descent in Dracula lore and superstition, Francis Ford Coppola's take on Dracula is far longer than the original 1931 version, yet so much more terrifying to watch. Demonstrating the backstory to Dracula (Gary Oldman) and providing the vicious vampire with more depth and emotional connection than in the original, Coppola allows his central monster to be felt as an extremely human character who only turned to evil as an expression of his incredible pain. With all of the classic characters from Bram Stoker's Dracula popping up throughout this film, Coppola's bloody descent into the very depths of hell set in Transylvania is one that lingers in the air like a dense, blue or green fog. Chilling to one's very soul, Coppola's take on Dracula may be infamous for the poor acting of Keanu Reeves, but it is so much more than anticipated.

With Gary Oldman portraying the titular monster, Coppola's take on Dracula is one laced with menace from the very beginning. Sinister, morose, and sadistic, images of Dracula's demonic horde of women seducing Keanu Reeves' Jon Harker or consuming a baby for strength are seared into the very fabric of this film. However, comes after revealing what has sent Dracula into this hellish descent into sin with Satan as his tour guide. Renouncing God and stabbing a crucifix after learning that his enemies had deceived his bride Elisabeth (Winona Ryder) into believing he was dead, which caused her to kill herself, Dracula turns his back on the Lord rather violently and becomes a vampire. Capturing souls for Satan via the seduction of spiritually vulnerable women such as Lucy Westenra (Sadie Frost), Dracula's discovery that Jonathan is set to marry Mina (Winona Ryder) who is a spitting image of Elisabeta is one that sets him on a course for London. Roping her into his world of sin and evil, Dracula is a man who is intent on mending his broken heart and delves into sin, immortality, and violence, as a method of soothing this ache in his now-dead soul. A shockingly tragic figure who, along with his minions, commits abhorrent violence, Dracula is a man who instills fear into the hearts of all those who hear of him and his ways. Yet, through his anguish, he becomes a man who is sympathetic in the sense that he was once a force for good who, through loss, let his soul and sword be used a weapon of Satan.

It is through this that the film's demonic exploits work in spite of the controversy surrounding them and why the film's "love conquers all" finale is so powerful. Tempting and using sin as a weapon against their targets, Coppola shows the bare-breasted demonic concubines seducing Jonathan by sliding through his spread legs and presenting themselves for his pleasure. Seducing him into lusting after them and committing a sin of the flesh, the women secure Jonathan's soul via this method. The disorienting camera work from Coppola and the decision to end the scene by showing the women swarm around a baby to drink its blood make the scene one that sends chills throughout the viewer's entire being. Yet, together with the characterization of Lucy as a sinful, worldly, and intensely sexual seductress of the men in her life, the film demonstrates the path by which one's soul is corrupted. Giving into this temptation leaves them open to sin, one which Lucy fully embraces and one that Jonathan stands strong and resists.

This descent into hell and corruption of good is demonstrated in Mina as well. At the beginning, she is envious of Lucy. Well-mannered, strict, and hardly a seductress, Mina is shocked to see nude images in a copy of Arabian Nights. When Lucy sees these images, however, she explains to Mina what is going on, giggles, and puts deviously sexual thoughts into Mina's head and expresses her own. Planting these seeds of sin, Mina is set up perfectly for the arrival of Dracula. Unleashing her inner sexual being, he gives her the carnal pleasure she so desires in the scene in which he takes turns her into a vampire. With Jonathan - her husband - unwilling to go into such sexuality even with his wife, she turns to Dracula as the only possible source of this pleasure and the one who makes her feel most in touch with her most forbidden desires. Demonstrating the immediate ecstasy and pleasure garnered from giving into temptation, Dracula quickly shows the downside with Mina expressing immediate regret and guilt over her sin when she collapses into Jonathan's arms after Dracula leaves.

It is through this necessary hellish descent into sin that Coppola expresses the soul of Dracula. A torn, broken, and hideously sinful man, he resents God so he corrupts those that would belong to Him. Putting sin, lust, and deceit, into their hearts due to the wrongs that he perceives to have been done to him, Dracula brings the hellish hurt and anguish of his soul onto the Earth in order to spread the pain, hunger, and forbidden lust that he feels in his soul.