Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)

Excess is an art form, as much as anything else. Many filmmakers go for broke, whether through striking images, sprawling storytelling or splashy sex and violence (or all three), but it's difficult to achieve high art instead of mere self-indulgence. The line separating, say, the controlled excess of Luchino Visconti and Baz Luhrmann's inane monstrosities is razor-thin.

With Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), Francis Ford Coppola tramples that line to dust. This lurid adaptation of the venerable vampire tale ranks among Hollywood's most schizophrenic films. It's a wildly uneven mixture of the sublime and ridiculous: beautiful imagery and lurid set pieces, operatic storytelling and absurd dramaturgy, solid acting and histrionic buffoonery.

Title aside, Coppola takes considerable liberties with Stoker's novel. He explicitly ties Dracula (Gary Oldman) with Vlad the Impaler, the Romanian ruler who terrorized the Turks with abominable cruelty. After Vlad's wife commits suicide, he renounces God and becomes Dracula. Centuries later, Dracula lures Jonathan Harker (Keanu Reeves) to his lair, absconding to London while trapping Harker in his castle. Dracula snacks on Lucy Westerna (Sadie Frost), but he's intrigued by Harker's wife Mina (Winona Ryder), the spitting image of his long-lost wife. Harker joins Professor Abraham Van Helsing (Anthony Hopkins) and Lucy's vengeful suitors to destroy Dracula.

No one can deny Bram Stoker's Dracula is a richly crafted film. Coppola employs a riot of visual treats, all impressive practical effects: Michael Ballhaus's otherworldly color schemes, matte effects, warped set design, ludicrous costumes. He excludes no lurid idea: elegant dresses swirl in windstorms, characters self-inject morphine, Mina and Lucy gleefully make out. Coppola marshals influences from German expressionism (Dracula's eyes brooding over Harker) to Mario Bava's horror flicks (a ghostly carriage out of Black Sunday). He serves up bloody decapitations and bestiality, then adds a running gun battle in the Carpathian Mountains! Why the hell not?

If one accepts the insane craftsmanship, Dracula's dramatic silliness becomes easier to swallow. Many Dracula films turn the Count from walking venereal disease to supernatural lothario, but Coppola's is the most egregious. Writer James V. Hart imagines Dracula as a hopeless romantic, pursing Elisabeth/Mina across the centuries. That's fine in theory, but how to reconcile it with the shape-shifting demon ravishing Lucy and causing animals to shudder at his approach? There's an awkward dissonance that Coppola never quite reconciles, veering between Gothic melodrama and absurdist horror film.
 
Coppola's all-star cast proves a mixed blessing. Gary Oldman reconciles Dracula's crazy-quilt characterization in a tragic, richly textured performance: brooding lover, blood-crazed demon, tormented soul. If anything here is an unqualified success, it's Oldman's Dracula. Winona Ryder, dodgy accent aside, gives the right mixture of haughtiness and vulnerability. Sadie Frost spends most of the show writhing seductively, something she excels at. Tom Waits proves especially inspired casting, playing Renfield as an intelligent, cunning madman rather than a drooling lunatic.

These effective stars are balanced by atrocious supporting players. Keanu Reeves's non-emoting and London-via-Venice Beach accent are infamously bad; just his uttering "Carfax Abbey" inspires raucous laughter. Cary Elwes, Billy Campbell and Richard E. Grant compensate for limited screen time with shameless overacting. But they're rank amateurs compared to Anthony Hopkins. Taking his dubious Oscar win as a license to ham, Hopkins raves, shrieks, gesticulates madly, spews over-baked dialogue and frothy curses in a slurred Dutch accent. By film's end he's painful to watch.

Bram Stoker's Dracula defies easy characterization. Is it a baroque masterpiece or cinematic vomit? After two viewings I'm not sure myself. Watch at your own peril.