Dracula: A Love Tale – Luc Besson stakes a claim on gothic romance (trailer).

Just when you thought Dracula adaptations had exhausted every possible angle—murderous, romantic, sparkling, kung-fu-fighting—Luc Besson swoops in from a snow-dusted Finnish forest to say, “Non, mes amis… you’ve seen nothing yet.” Dracula: A Love Tale, scheduled to drop fangs-first into French cinemas on July 30th, 2025, has unveiled its trailer—and it’s moody, stylish, and absolutely soaked in gothic melodrama.

This time, the Count is played by Caleb Landry Jones, an actor with a face that says “I may have just murdered a Victorian innkeeper” even when he’s smiling. Besson was reportedly so bewitched by Jones’ performance in Dogman that he basically built this version of Dracula around him—which explains a lot. Like why Dracula is now brooding under softly falling snow in Finland, instead of gallivanting around Transylvania in a cape that flaps suspiciously like bat wings.

Joining Jones in the swirl of blood, longing, and Eastern Orthodox guilt are Christoph Waltz, clearly relishing his role as a tortured priest with a penchant for eyebrow-raising monologues, and Matilda De Angelis as Maria, a young woman presumably doomed to be seduced, devoured, or turned into the undead’s answer to a wedding ring.

There’s also Zoë Bleu Sidel doing double duty as Elisabeta and Mina—because why settle for one tragic female archetype when you can have two, superimposed with dramatic irony? Danny Elfman provides the score, presumably delivering his usual cocktail of gothic waltz meets haunted carousel, while Besson’s camera glides through snow-choked forests and ruined monasteries like it’s on a very expensive drone fuelled entirely by tortured souls and absinthe.

The trailer is pure gothic eye candy: ancient letters aflame, blood-red lips trembling with forbidden passion, crosses swinging ominously in candlelight, and more anguished stares than a year’s worth of BBC period dramas. But underneath all the style lies a slightly bonkers premise: this Dracula is, yes, a love story. One where the horror isn’t just about what Dracula does to people—it’s what they willingly let him do, in the name of longing.

In other words, it’s Crimson Peak meets Only Lovers Left Alive, filtered through Besson’s maximalist lens and sprinkled with just enough philosophical musing to make you question whether eternal love is truly romantic… or just very bad life planning.

Here at SFcrowsnest, we’re sharpening our stakes and adjusting our collars in anticipation. After all, Dracula is cinema’s greatest shape-shifter: sometimes monstrous, sometimes suave, sometimes accidentally sexy, and occasionally French. This latest take might just give us a Dracula who is all of those things—and then some. But one thing’s for sure: this isn’t your nana’s Hammer Horror.

Prepare for passion, poetry, and at least one tragic snowbound kiss. Dracula: A Love Tale is coming—and he’s bringing the blizzards with him.