Did you know: Dracula was actually the name of the scientist, not the monster.

This was pretty good. It's a shame that Bram Stoker didn't direct more films.

I'm convinced that Keanu is such a nice, chill dude that no director is willing to actually direct him.

Keanu saying "Doctor, please!" really sounds like "Dude, not cool!".

"We don't do paid sponsorships." Nice try, but you ain't fooling William Shatner.

"We don't do paid sponsorships" Don't lie to me Jay, I still remember the George Foreskin Grill

"Where did you get this, The GROCERY STORE?!" is the second funniest thing Mike has ever said just behind "Rollercoaster into your own grave"

Never ceases to amaze me how bulletproof Keanu is as an actor. As an action guy he's great, but in drama he is ALWAYS abysmal. Yet no matter how many awful performances he delivers every one still loves the guy. I do too...can't explain it.

One of my favorite Keanu Reeves stories was him walking into a 7-11, late at night, and hearing a voice from the dark parking lot yell, "I don't care what anyone says; you were great in Dracula!"

Mike: Makes a Star Trek reference Jay: Cricket sound Mike: Mentions the orgy scene Jay: "Oh yeah!"

Gary Oldman is so fucking good in this movie.

WHY did I immediately know they were gonna spit the wine out? I’m so jaded with these guys.

jay's anecdote about mistakenly remembering sherilyn fenn and the wolfman is probably the most jay that jay has ever been

Considering Drac becomes young in the book, I thought it was a daring departure to keep him an oldman the whole time

"A blend of camp, 70s exploitation and retro 1920s throwback" has to be one of the greatest descriptions of this movie I have ever heard. Perfectly nails what makes it so wonderful and simultaneously a little frustrating at times.

Conspiracy theory: Keanu was intentionally cheesing his acting in the period movie so we wouldn't clock that he's actually that one guy from the 1700s and immortal

I think that the most interesting part of this film is just how Catholic it is. Rather than vampirism being a metaphor for disease, or sex, or foreigners, Coppola chose to make vampirism a consequence of profanation of the Eucharist. Dracula renounces God and stabs the Cross, then drinks the blood out of the chalice on the altar while cursing himself. What we see here is vampirism as a shallow imitation/mockery of the eternal life promised by Christ. This comes up later in the scene where Dracula visits Mina at the asylum. Rather than having Mina drink from an obvious place like his wrist, he has Mina drink from a wound in his side. This has to be a reference to the Gospel according to St. John in which blood and water flow from the side of Jesus crucified on the Cross (see Jn 19:34). Then, Dracula bids Mina to drink "to join [him] in eternal life," this time referencing the (traditional) Catholic communion where the giving of the Eucharist is accompanied by the words, "May the body of our Lord Jesus Christ lead you to eternal life" (one does wonder, however, why Coppola didn't use something more similar to the Orthodox formulation since he clearly showed familiarity in Orthodoxy in the way the priest crossed himself in the beginning as well as in the wedding of Jonathan and Mina). Finally, in Dracula's death scene, he says something that is a bit difficult to make out, but I heard the words "God" and "forsaken me." I think that what Dracula is saying is an allusion to Christ's last words on the Cross before dying (at least according to St. Matthew), "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matt. 27:46). Afterwards, Mina says that Dracula's actions had "released us all from the powers of darkness." I don't know why Coppola thought it would make any sense (either theologically or in the logic of the setting), but this line clearly indicates that Dracula's death is somehow salvific, just as salvation comes through the Crucifixion. Coppola has used very Catholic imagery before; I refer of course to the Baptism/multiple homicide scene in the Godfather where the murders occurring intercut with Michael's participation in the Baptismal ceremony not only shows his hypocrisy, but it also symbolizes his full entry into the world of organized crime, as Baptism is a person's entry into the Church. Therefore, all this Catholic imagery in Coppola's Dracula has to be deliberate. I don't think I have seen any other Dracula film take this angle - vampirism as sacrilege.

To be fair, I think Keanu reacting with a poker face to all the insane shit that happens in the movie is comedy gold

"Everything works together...except for Keanu Reeves." Jay, that is the best review of the film I have ever heard.

"It is here that we must find him and destroy him utterly." "When do we attack? Dawn? When he's sleeping?" "No, light the torches. We attack at night..."

That scene where Dracula steps back into the shadows and turns into rats is perfect special effects. 30 years later, it still looks flawless.

Mike: “creepy pervert porn” Jay: “yeah...”

the scene where Dracula and Mina lock eyes and quickly walk backwards in the cinema scene followed by "I have crossed oceans of time to find you" is more romantic than anything I will ever experience in my lifetime

When they were talking about Dracula's shadow all I think about was the bit in Treehouse of Horrors IV when Mr Burns is Dracula and his shadow starts playing with a yoyo

That miniature train chugging through those red-lit mountains evokes more atmosphere than any multimillion computer generated nonsense.

The thing about not doing paid sponsorships directly contradicts what I've heard from Captain Kirk.

Lucy's costume in the crypt was amazing. The monsters and costumes in this movie haven't been surpassed yet.

Keanu Reeves is an acting genius... nobody looks more convincingly vacant than him.

It's weird how this is simultaneously one of the most accurate adaptations and also the most divergent.

I love how Mike acts so serious when he really loves the movie he’s talking about.

"We don’t do paid sponsorships" Yea, right. You just REALLY enjoyed eating chunckys chicken, you hacks?

Can we just take a moment to appreciate Anthony Hopkins? In thirty years, he won an Oscar, found mainstream success, can balance comedy and drama and do both equally, isn’t some weird sex pervert//harasser, and is still putting out great performances in his late 80s and can even carry a movie almost on his own, (Two Popes, The Father). And not for nothing, he’s an awesome Van Helsing here.

Gary Oldman's Dracula looks the modern-day John Travolta

This was my high school drama teacher’s favourite horror film. We watched in class every Halloween. She died two years ago so I try to watch it around Halloween to remember her

This film is so inexplicably beautiful. The dreamlike cinematography just sticks in my mind even though I don't think I've ever seen the film all the way through.

i live in sonoma county, about 15 miles from the coppala winery and i have been there many times. the wine is decent and the restaurant is actually pretty good. they also have a small film museum. they have the original desk used in the godfather, the Dracula armor, and some really cool props from apocalypse now. dont plan your whole trip around it, but if you are in the area its a fun thing to see.

"Whoa! That dude is a most excellent climber!"

Finally Redlettermedia becomes a wine tasting channel.

I liked *how* the film added the love story bit. As mentioned, this part of the movie strays from the book but the explanation given in the film makes perfect sense given the "rules" of the book. In the novel, everything is told from a perspective of looking back on the events through the reading of ship's logs, newspaper clippings, and journal entries. In the movie, Mina throws the pages of her journal that reference her relationship with the Count into the sea, as she never wants Jonathan to read them. Thus, when all of the information is later compiled in the book we never learn about Mina's infidelity. It's a great addition to the story that doesn't sacrifice any of the original plot.

I don't know, I always thought Lucy in vampire form heading back to her crypt with a child was a good actual horror scene. The movie doesn't give you a lot of moments to think about things but when you do...that was pretty great horror. I LOVE this movie.

Hopkins casually describing how they decapitate the girl and drive a stake into her heart *as he eats* is absolutely glorious.

"Old timers Gary Oldman and Anthony Hopkins blowing away the young cast" Gary Oldman is 7 years older than Keanu.

Count Strahd von Zarovich, a vampire in the AD&D (Advanced Dungeons and Dragons) Ravenloft Campaign Setting (1983), had a tragic story with a woman, Tatyana, that he loved. He killed his brother (who was marrying her) and she jumped off the balcony to suicide. Then he was tormented by reincarnations of Tatyana, every generation or so, always searching for her, always dying tragically. I remember watching the "Bram Stoker's Dracula" movie when I was in high-school (around 16). We went to the cinema with a couple of classmates and one guy fell asleep cause he was tired by football training. The other guy and me loved the movie though. A few years later, I had moved to another city for University and made new friends and we played "Advanced Dungeons and Dragons" a lot. And this movie was one of our favorites (we watched it again a few times). We had the soundtrack playing during our D&D sessions. Also used soundtracks from "Interview with the Vampire", "Last of the Mohicans", "Conan the Barbarian", "The 13th Warrior" and others. Good times, even though we never played in Ravenloft per se.

A great review of a flawed masterpiece. Idk if Dracula is Coppola's "best film," because Godfather 1 and 2, The Conversation, and Apocalypse Now all lumber so tall in film history for many well-deserved reasons, but Dracula seems to be his great passion project, and his most enjoyable for me to watch. He cut his teeth for Roger Corman making shlock horror films, and I have a feeling Dracula is Coppola's favorite film he has made. His total love for film as an art form really shines through here more than any other in his filmography.

"It's so thin, every single image has only a couple of in-camera effects going on..."

Wish they had talked more about Hopkins performance as mad bastard Van helsing, he really raises up the 2nd half of the movie

The fact that they still censored the wine bottle 40 minutes into the video brought a little joy into my shriveled heart.

90s Johnny Depp would have elevated the movie massively. Gary Oldman was so spectacularly let down by Keanu's comical acting

If you want true gothic horror, listen to Keanu Reeves' British accent.

Weirdly enough, in the book, Johnathan Harker did spend a lot of his time at the castle trying to justify what he was seeing and not reacting to shit, because he a) didn't want to piss off his host and b) honestly had no idea what the fuck he was seeing and thought maybe shit just was weird like that in Transylvania. I don't think that stress comes through in Keanu's performance though, it would have been cool to see him struggling to hold it together.

Gary played this role like a boss..

"We don't need his 50 bucks." We don't believe you. Those "Dick the Birthday Boy" shirts aren't free.

Keanu Reeves' performance was so wooden, they used him to stake Dracula.

I saw this in theaters when it first came out. First time I went my boyfreind slipped me some acid about an hour before. So needless to say, I was peaking right as the movie started. It was intense; the colors of the costumes, the creepy sound effects, I fell in love with this movie.

It makes me so happy to see this film get so much love.... I have done my duty in showing this movie to as many people as possible over the years.

It's bittersweet seeing these ads in RLM. I know they're just doing them to fund Rich Evans' terrible meth addiction.

Aw man sad they didn't talk more about how great Van Helsing is in this film. Hopkins absolutely kills it

I watched this film again for the umpteenth time last night and was still wondering, in all ways, how they pulled this world together. It is a dazzling love letter to the cinema of illusion. The range of emotion you feel while watching it is phenomenal. I have loved it since the first time I saw it, in the long gone days of yore. Bravo Mr Coppola & brilliant Co.

I always thought in the movie he was just around so long that he was influenced by many cultures. And he created what he liked I guess. 🧐

I wish I hadn't heard that Johnny Depp could have potentially played Johnathan. It feels to me like it would have been perfect for him. I'm not a big Depp fan, but it feels like it would be his sort of role, like in Sleepy Hollow, or Fear and Loathing; and the best of that sort of role.

This movie turned 12 year old me goth. Dracula: "I have crossed oceans of time to find you." Me: Mom, I need more black clothes. 💀💕🦇

I'm glad you highlighted the music, because it is absolutely exceptional - probably the best score of its era, definitely the most enduring thing from the film

As hokey as Keanu Reeves is, I actually think his lack of response during the early stuff works as he's putting his role as a solicitor before anything else. He's not going to make his client aware of the fact that he thinks he's a weirdo, he's signing the cheques.

It's funny Mike says Oldman is light years ahead of the "young cast" - he's only 5 years older than Keanu!

My girlfriend genuinely asked me "Who wrote Bram Stoker's Dracula...Was it Mary Shelly?"... I do love her.

Going beyond the source material is what separates a great director from a journeyman. This is a GREAT example of a visionary director at work.

At University, this movie was put up for analysis because it refers back to a lot of late German Romanticism, with the travel-motivs, the ever-changing epic music score, and such. This also connects to the changes that Coppola made to the original story. What I missed in here is the amazing find of putting Tom Waits in Renfield's role. A role that is very central to the original book as well, with him being this 'tainted human' that longs to become a vampire and is used by Dracula as his liason into human existence.

In regards to the love story, there's a scene where Mina is on a ship going to meet Jonathan and she's tearing pages out of her diary. Thus they justify the romance not being in the novel. Good stuff by Coppola

Tom Waitts as Renfield was also a great performance.

Relax everyone, they aren't doing sponsored content, they haven't sold out, they're just feeding their alcoholism.

Coppola is a solid ‘gift to bring an SO’s parents wine’ FYI. They always love it.

You know Mike loves a movie when he remembers the characters' names

Imagine Shatner decides to give them one more shot and doesn't make it to the spit take before calling them shills again.

The older I get, the more I relate to Vlad the Impaler spiking people

PLEASE talk about dracula dead and loving it. At least Renfield.

Sofia Coppola should direct Frankenstein where he stares out of windows a lot and thinks about how boring it is to be rich.

I read Dracula for the first time during Covid, and I thought it was funny that the journal excerpts are comically like a found-footage movie. In found-footage, you’re like “why are they filming!?” and in Dracula, there are journal entries akin to “I can hear Dracula in the hallway. He is coming for me. I am moments away from death.” X-D

keanu and winona's performances sort of add to the feeling of the movie, cause the whole thing feels like the movie version of a cd-rom adventure game like phantasmagoria or harvester

>> "Vlad the Impaler was a horrific monster" He's actually considered a national hero in Romania. A lot of his legend comes from the politics of the time and how different sides wanted to drum up the signficance of what he did.

I am very sad that no time was spent on Tom Waits’ performance as Rendfield.

"There haven't really been any Dracula movies after this one" Congratulations on successfully blocking Dario Argento's Dracula 3D from your memory.

Art is unreal. This is an example of a movie, where the artists take their time to make and put things things together that don´t make sense. It's very beautiful. It's filled with contradictions, and that makes it good. And if you think about it, makes all sense with the story: Vlad the impaler who kills in the name of god is betrayed by him, is condemned to live for all eternity as a monster; even the contradiction of having excelllent actors working together will newbies.

I always loved that this adaptation is never all that scary. It makes a great date night movie and is very rewatchable.

“Coppola wine is the key to all this.”

The “Geisha Robes” is also a reference to the painter, Gustav Klimt and his most famous work, The Kiss.

Thank you for this Re-View. I want to go back and watch it now. Keep up the good work.

I still watch this movie every couple of years or so. Wonderful film

The most memorable thing about BS's Dracula for me is that it was the first time I saw a movie where a scene in the preview had been cut from the actual movie. In the preview, there was a shot of Van Helsing standing against the castle wall beside a drawbridge shouting "Kill them all, let God sort them out!" That wasn't in the final cut of movie. The second-most-memorable thing for me is that the first time I saw Dracula, I was home from school with the flu and had a high fever. I thought it seemed really strange and disjointed because of the fever. When I rewatched it later, I realized that no, it was just the movie.

My first thought seeing this video: "When was Supreme Chancellor Palpatine a vampire?"

The "japanese guy" was Eiko Ishioka, who did the set design for Paul Schrader's Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters and The Cell.

i love how every time i watch one of your reviews i want to rewatch the movie immediately

This movie is just special to me. The effort into the effects was quite inspiring and passionate. Despite its faults it’s gorgeous and gothic and melodramatic in the best way.

Funny, how "Dracula Untold" was so bad that everybody including these two guys forgot about it. And it's not even been 10 years....

The guys didn't talk about my favorite part of the movie: Tom Waits as Renfield. It's marvelously fun.

The word you're looking for, Mike, is "bombast."

As someone who lives in NorCal wine country, that intro was spot on lol.

It's funny Mike says Dracula wasn't written with a film audience in mind. That's true, but Stoker was also manager of a theater (he knew Oscar Wilde) and actually released a theatrical version of the story just before the book was published in order to establish his copyright, so theatrical adaptations probably were in the back of his mind for the book to some extent. It looks like the book Dracula was actually based on the mannerisms of one of his theater's main actors.

Thanks for re-viewing this one. It's one of my favorites. Brilliant film-making. Gary Oldman and Anthony Hopkins are fantastic! And I love the score.

we saw this a couple times in the theater and maybe twice in the dollar theater. i loved the beginning so much; his armor looked so cool! great video!

That clip with Gary Oldman and Coppola invokes that scene in Spinal Tap when Nigel is complaining about the sandwiches.