TheRetroCritic

Bram Stoker's Dracula is a weird one. Thinking back to it after having not seen it in a while, I always remember really awesome visual stuff and isolated iconic moments crossed with key silly things like Keanu Reeves' entire performance. Having finally re-watched it, it's just as "varied" as I recalled: stylish and inventive yet wacky and flawed. I probably shouldn't like this movie as much as I do but... There's a charm to it that's almost impossible to ignore. For one thing, director Francis Ford Coppola really went for it, never sugar-coating anything and, in the process, brought to the screen a bold version of Bram Stoker's classic novel no-one else could have possibly made and which certainly leaves its mark when you first see it. The film's main arc involves Vlad The Impaler's (a genial Gary Oldman) undying love for his late bride who happens to have a descendant/lookalike (played by Winona Ryder) in 1897, which is when mos