Dracula (1992)

Saw the 1992 version of Dracula (thanks, John!) It was a glorious romp. The film opens with a backstory involving knights and a double-cross executed by the crafty Turks (oh, those crafty Turks!) The overblown, operatic opening progresses with the decrepit, modern Dracula, whose speech is backed by a halloween special-effects record of babies crying and wolves howling. Rats crawl upside-down and everything's just sumptuous. I loved it.

The film removes any and all subtlety of the Dracula story. The sex is blatant. When Dracula appears as a fog, it's glowing green. It's just a never-ending romp. By the end, when a sensory overload like this often drags, the film slows into a sultry crawl, the good guys eternally chasing the bad, the sexy ladies eternally seducing the upright Van Helsings. Everything is dialed up and excessive and showy. There's reversed film for no damn reason apart from just looking weird. There's tons of shots where the actors are on dollys, wheeling forward unnaturally. This is the sort of film that consumes imaginations.

There were a few odd bits: I didn't like Keanu Reeves' goofy accent, nor the accent of the apparently southern-american suitor of Lucy. Dracula has his own absurd accent, of course. I don't think he says "Dracula" the same way twice ("Drah... ghula", "Dracool-ah", "Drah. Gu. La.") But this, like Keanu's accent and all, are supposed to be overblown, stagily gaudy, and I loved them even as they annoyed me. This is a great fun spooky movie, like The Addams Family. Just goofy, whimsical, delightful nonsense.

Edit: also worth noting is the lack of computer-tricks. There's a ton of silent-era camera magic on display here. Just delightful.