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Dracula

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Dracula reviews
57
8.1 User Score:

Mixed or average reviews

Based on 17 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 10 votes
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Movie Info

Genre(s): Drama  |  Fantasy  |  Horror  |  Romance  |  Suspense/Thriller

Written by: Bram Stoker (novel)
James V. Hart

Directed by: Francis Ford Coppola

Release Date:
Theatrical: November 13, 1992
DVD: October 7, 1997

Running Time: 128 minutes, Color

Origin: USA

Language(s): English / Romanian / Greek / Bulgarian

Summary

RATING: Rated R for sexuality and horror violence

Starring Gary Oldman, Winona Ryder, Anthony Hopkins, Keanu Reeves, Richard E. Grant, Cary Elwes, Tom Waits, and Sadie Frost

In Bram Stoker's Dracula, Coppola returns to the original source of the Dracula myth, and from that gothic romance, he creates a modern masterpiece. Gary Oldman's metamorphosis as Dracula who grows from old to young, from man to beast is nothing short of amazing. Opulent, dazzling and utterly irresistible, this is Dracula as you've never seen him. And once you've seen Bram Stoker's Dracula, you'll never forget it. (Sony Pictures)

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

Indeed, it is a uniquely dreamlike, lushly romantic, highly erotic and prototypically Coppolaesque version of the story - a movie that does for the vampire genre what "The Godfather" did for the gangster saga, and what "Apocalypse Now" did for the war movie: raises it to the level of grand opera. [13 Nov 1992, p.5]

88

TV Guide Staff (Not Credited)

Francis Ford Coppola's lavish version of Bram Stoker's classic novel is a visual cornucopia, overstuffed with images of both beauty and grotesque horror.

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78

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Interestingly, Coppola has eschewed state-of-the-art special effects in favor of a panoply of archaic film-school tricks -- reversing the film, multiple exposures, playing with the shutter speed -- that give his Dracula a stylized, almost hyper-real clarity and a wonderfully singular weirdness.

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75

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Oldman and Ryder and Hopkins pant with eagerness. The movie is an exercise in feverish excess, and for that if for little else, I enjoyed it.

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75

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Jay Scott

Francis Ford Coppola's adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel Dracula, is decadent, overpoweringly erotic campiness coupled with soft-core pornography - blood, breasts, buttocks and big teeth. It's daring and those with a taste for the sexily sanguine will find it delightful. But it's not for the prudish. [13 Nov 1992, p.C1]

70

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Francis Coppola's ambitious 1992 version brings back the novel's multiple narrators, leading to a somewhat dispersed and overcrowded story line that remains fascinating and often affecting thanks to all its visual and conceptual energy.

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70

The New York Times Vincent Canby

Dracula has the nervy enthusiasm of the work of a precocious film student who has magically acquired a master's command of his craft. It's surprising, entertaining and always just a little too much.

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70

Washington Post Desson Howe

It's sexy and bloody and, to my amazement, R-rated, but in a stylized, Grand Kabuki manner that lifts the action (including the sex and violence) from our normal sphere of reality to the realm of timeless, primal tales.

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70

Time Richard Corliss

Coppola brings the old spook story alive -- well, undead -- as a luscious, infernal romance.

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63

Chicago Tribune Gene Siskel

Coppola has raised the stakes, promising the definitive version of the vampire story. What he has created, however, is fresh and original yet boring, an exercise more in art direction than storytelling. [13 Nov 1992, p. C]

60

Variety Todd McCarthy

Francis Ford Coppola's take on the Dracula legend is a bloody visual feast. Both the most extravagant screen telling of the oft-filmed story and the one most faithful to its literary source, this rendition sets grand romantic goals for itself that aren't fulfilled emotionally, and it is gory without being at all scary.

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60

Washington Post Hal Hinson

Dracula, which also stars Winona Ryder, Keanu Reeves and Anthony Hopkins, is an evocative visual feast. But the meal is spectral, without the dramatic equivalent of nutritional value.

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50

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

The director has dressed up a classic tale in mesmerizing visual overkill without coming close to its dark heart. [13 Nov 1992, p. 56]

40

Empire Tom Hibbert

There was so much potential, yet when it came down to it, Coppola made his Dracula too old to be menacing, gave Keanu Reeves a part and took out all the action. So all we're left with is an overly long bloated adaptation, instead of what might have been a gothic masterpiece.

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30

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Coppola decided that he really wasn't making a horror film after all, but rather a love story, a comic burlesque, a costume drama, a piece of erotica, whatever. But no matter what else you do with it, a Dracula that cannot manage to be more scary than silly is as pitilessly doomed as that elegant old Transylvanian himself. [13 Nov 1992]

25

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Bram Stoker's Dracula is a lovingly made, gorgeously realized, meticulously crafted failure. It has big names, a big budget, big sets, a big, thundering score and even big hair. But it doesn't do it. It doesn't excite or fascinate but just lies there on the screen. [13 Nov 1992, p. C1]

25

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Shots of blood and naked bodies clash bizarrely with Coppola's more quaint and engaging notions; the result may be intended as a dialectical encounter, but seems more like a head-on collision.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 8.1 (out of 10) based on 10 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

David M gave it a1:
The worst film I've seen, read the book, it's much better.

Atticus D gave it a0:
Easily on of the worst movies I have ever seen. Keanu Reeves seriously needs to learn how to act.

Kirsi M. gave it a10:
Mistitled but a feast of interesting and stunningly beautiful images (this is, after all, a motion PICTURE), creating a dream-like atmosphere of period and fantasy. Mina and Lucy and their costumes look fabulous, albeit Stoker probably was spinning in his grave: one of his heroines was a vampires lover, other was a nymphomaniac! In Stokers novel, Lucy was the feminine ideal of " unequalled sweetness and purity" , the vampires were strong, sluttish and punishable, - yes, vamps. In this late 20th century version, red-haired firecracker Lucy, albeit clean like dewy rose in the world of crap called modern horror, is too uniinhibited to be Stokers weepy virgin. Violence and sex are stylized, never gross, and score is gorgeous. And Oldman? Much better than overrated Christopher Lee (who was never more than laughable sex fantasy) and actually quite good. Not Stokers Dracula, but great vampire flick.

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