I am stunned...stunned, I tell you! I expected this to be a cornball and cheap interpretation but it's a solid retelling featuring Frank Langella as the Count. He's a much more attractive, lusty version of Dracula. The effects aren't great but this movie has atmosphere to spare. I didn't get the late '70s cheese that I thought I was in for.

A decent to great cast, and some good landscape shots (though few and far between), and good to hokey acting. But it's poorly paced, with 30-foot theater makeup effects, and generally just feels drained of blood. It should have been an hour forty five at the longest. It feels unfocused. There's too much difference in the quiet and loud scenes, the score is terribly overwrought, and THERE'S SO. MUCH. YELLING. AND CRAZY PEOPLE SCREAMING. The bat attack had me laughing. And yet it's boring and cheesy. And there's not even any nudity. I've seen sleazy vampire movies with more striking imagery. The women are beautiful and incredibly charming (amongst the weirdo color processing and dull fog), but Mina hardly gets any screen time in comparison to the dreadful runtime.

Based on the 1924 stage play, _Dracula_ is a remake of the Universal classic, but with more of a romantic take. Frank Langella dons the cloak as a young, sexy Dracula who seduces Lucy Seward, the daughter of a sanitarium director, but he soon draws unwanted attention to himself when he kills Lucy’s friends Mina Van Helsing; whose father comes to investigate and discovers what Dracula is. Langella give a strong performance and is backed by a solid supporting cast that includes Laurence Olivier and Donald Pleasence. As with the Universal film, the adaptation of Bram Stoker’s work is fairly loose; moving around characters and cutting out various plot elements. However, the change in tone to a romantic tragedy works rather well, and is aided in no small part by John William’s elegant score. And the art and costume design is quite impressive. While it’s not without its problems, _Dracula_ delivers a bold new vision of Bram Stoker’s immortal tale.

A quite good Dracula movie, though Frank Langella does not always seem to be right choice for the part.

This version is passable I guess but they completely cut out Johnathan Harker's trip to Transylvania.