Bram Stoker's Dracula

1/2

Yes, it's over-the-top and uses every gothic cliche available, and yes, it includes the necessary Coppola footage of religious ceremony + blood bath, and yes, Sadie Frost makes me wince, and yes, Winona Ryder tends to annoy me in everything she does, and yes, Keanu Reeves is *horribly* miscast (though with Harker...(read more) that might be the point)...

All that being said, this still gets 3 1/2 stars from me because Gary Oldman utterly transforms himself and, for once, I actually believed Dracula was something more than a blood-sucking fiend. Gary makes the Count's emotions, however warped, come through in a quasi-heroic style, changing this from a horror film into more of a twisted romance a la Angela Carter. And, not for nothing, when I first saw this on tv as a thirteen-year old, Dracula and Mina's mutual seduction in the insane asylum was pretty damn hot.  I think I even wrote about it in everyone's yearbook that I signed in grade nine.  If you can get the thirteen year olds hooked, a movie's influence can last forever.  Rowr.

I'd also like to point out that I once had to write about this movie in an essay for my Science Fiction and Fantasy in Film course at the University of Toronto.  I was so happy, I think I grinned throughout the entire exam.