Dracuul.

 When I look at Francis Ford Coppola's 1992 Dracula the description that comes to mind is decadent opulence. That and "studio excess". But I'm not going to complain when I get a film this incredible aesthetic triumph. But that fortune spent is in every frame. I couldn't help think that the studio was so excited to get Coppola as director, they just gave him unlimited access to their ATM (well, figuratively speaking). Money definitely didn't seem to be a problem. And as a Gothic horror fan, that side of the film certainly captured me in its spinning web. As a craftsman, Coppola was firing on all cylinders.

Turks being impaled on swords and spikes (one soldier actually sliding down a spike stuck in the ground while strewn out across the dead valley were dead soldiers thrusted on spikes en masse) as Dracula leads his Transylvanian army through them is quite a dazzling display all done is dark silhouette. Dracula denouncing God, stabbing his sword right into the heart of the cross in a cathedral, after finding his beloved dead from leaping off a castle balcony to her doom because of false report of his demise on the battlefield is a hell of a way (pun intended) to introduce this fallen warrior who felt slighted by the deity he so faithfully served. So when he later finds Mina, her resemblance uncanny with his lost Elisabeta, that opening is the perfect setup.

The film, while rewatching it, is a wealth of riches even if it has its share of inadequacies. No, I won't spend my time cracking the whip across the browbeaten performance of Keanu Reeves who was clearly cast for his looks and ongoing rise up the Hollywood action star ranks. You thrust this poor guy into scenes with a game Oldman in a vast, dreadful centuries-old Transylvanian castle, buried in aging makeup, gliding and carousing about with a lust for blood and adventure, anticipating his new excursion into London society where he can hopefully reclaim lost love through a potential seduction of Ryder's Mina, and Reeves is unfortunately overwhelmed. 

But Oldman is sure capable, more than, of reaching out of any costume, makeup, whether as a wrinkled relic of the past where he once led soldiers into battle or as a hairy beast ravaging sexually (and drinking from passionately) Lucy (Sadie Frost, an absolute representation of sexual curiosity and salient pursuits), and commands his audience.