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Bram Stoker's Dracula
Customer Reviews
Rating:  - Great Movie - Blu-ray quality is low...
For those looking to buy this movie for Blu-Ray... The quality is barely above DVD level. I was disappointed with how grainy and blurry the shots were compared to other Blu-Ray titles available.
As for the movie itself, it is a classic, and if you have not seen it, you should. It goes over all Dracula lore, from Renfeld to Van Helsing, to Dracula's 3 sisters. And unlike the newer movie Van Helsing, this movie is very good, and oddly focuses on the character and romance, as opposed to relying on special effects.
Rating:  - Really good upgrade!
I've always liked this movie and found previous DVD's to be lacking, but this Blu-Ray has everything you could wish for, great picture, great sound and lots of extras. Highly recommended.
Rating: - Great fun...but it isn't Bram Stoker's Dracula
Having not read Dracula in years, I decided to read it again and compare it to the contemporary (1992) movie version...Coppola's "Bram Stoker's Dracula" starring Gary Oldman. When I initially read the story as a child, I focused more on my stereotyped "Dracula as performed by Bella Lugosi" and not Stoker's original version. Reading Stoker in the original again I was charmed by the writing style and mores of the times. It holds up well. I then watched Coppola's movie which was tarted up and sexualized for today's audience. While Oldman's over the top performance is great fun to watch, the book is so much better. And if I were Stoker, I would be turning in my grave since the movie version barely follows the book and yet is "Bram Stoker's Dracula".
Rating:  - What a disappointment
I do agree with other reviewers who were disappointed with the Blu-ray version.
I got this dvd only because it is a "classic" and has some very good scenes that are highly Gothic and memorable in the world of horror films.
Seeing as to how I had high expectations, and that I was very pleased with the Silent Hill Blu-ray, I really thought this film would look absolutely beautiful.
The truth is, like another reviewer commented, the film is grainy looking, and the colours are not always true as well. I was also very disappointed that this film is not widescreen! Why? This to me was the most disappointing aspect of all.
I really hate in the end that I shelled out for this.
Rating:  - Darkly Beautiful But Surprisingly Sterile
Although it received generally positive reviews and proved a world-wide box office success, public reaction to the 1992 BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA was significantly mixed. To a certain extent, this reaction was based on the film's slightly abstract, extremely operatic visual style--a style which seemed to overpower not only the actors but the actual story itself.
DRACULA has a spectacular visual design that mixes ideas about Victorian style with flamboyant color and ornate, border-line baroque detail that seems more suited to an Asian stage play than a film presumably set in 1890s England. The cinematography follows suit, using double and triple exposures, shared screen photography, and intense washes of color. The result is tremendously moody, both beautiful and ominious. It is also extremely distracting, and it tends to bury the actors, script, and story to such an extent that the film becomes less about these elements than about the mood and look inflicted upon them.
At the time it was released, DRACULA was touted as the first film version that was faithful to the 1897 novel by Bram Stoker--but this is not true, as any one who has read the novel can attest. The film has been deeply influenced by the Bela Lugosi film, the Boris Karloff THE MUMMY, and the "Hammer Horror" vampire films of the 1960s; it explains how Dracula became a vampire, incorporates dollops of reincarnation, includes a very romantic subplot, and presents us with an ultimately sexy vampire--none of which exist in Stoker's novel. There is also considerable sex, and while this is a part of the original novel its power there arises from its subtextual nature; here it is rendered explicit and consequently seems less powerful than merely commonplace. Even so, the core story of Dracula's transition from Transylvannia to England, his attacks on Lucy and Mina, and his ultimate destruction remains much the same.
The casting of Gary Oldman as Dracula and Anthony Hopkins as Van Helsing was a stroke of genius, but sad to say the production-heavy nature of the film doesn't allow them the necessary wiggle-room necessary to create the memorable performances you would expect. Winona Ryder seems very aptly cast as Mina, as does Sadie Frost as Lucy--but the script undercuts both, leaving Mina slightly chilly and Lucy excessively overheated. As for the eternally Keanu Reeves, he lives up to his reputation as one of the least interesting actors of the era, delivering a memorably wooden performance.
When the film delivers, it does so memorably, with the scene in which Lucy is laid to rest for once and all a case in point. But overall, BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA is not Bram Stoker, nor is it actually a cohesive variation: it simply a particularly exotic vision forced upon a story that doesn't support it. The result is often darkly beautiful, but it is also somewhat sterile and surprisingly uninvolving. The recent "special edition" DVD actually undercuts the visual interest of the film; the transfer is dreadful. If you are a fan who wants the bonus material--and there is a goodly amount of it--you would do best to hang onto your original DVD copy as well, for it will be superior to the version offered here.
GFT, Amazon Reviewer
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