Initial Review

Watched 21 October 2026, 4 stars

Still working my way through my list of 13 Dracula/Nosferatu movies that I made, and after watching this I discovered a minor misordering on my part: This movie starts with the ship that Count Dracula was on running aground; I should've watched The Last Voyage of the Demeter (2023) first.

At any rate, it's been a fun experience watching so many of these in such a short time and really being able to pick up on the differences and seeing what each writer and director wanted to focus on, as well as how each actor (in every role, really) wanted to play it.

I didn't think I would like Frank Langella's portrayal of the Count going into this, and it did take me a while to get used to how fluffy his hair is, but he actually turned out to be a really great Dracula. I also found him and Kate Nelligan's Lucy to have pretty palpable chemistry. A later scene between them takes a bit of a psychedelic turn I wasn't expecting, but it was so well done that I'd recommend watching this for that alone.

I feel like Willem Dafoe may have taken some of what Laurence Olivier did with Van Helsing here and injected his von Franz in Nosferatu (2024) with it. Not a bad thing!

No one will remember me bringing up Donald Pleasence's choice to eat in every scene in Nosferatu in Venice (1988), but interestingly it seems that he's done it here first (different character, but still).

I could probably be talked up to a 4.5! This was better than I expected it to be, to the point of me wondering why it seems as though this isn't as popular as others.