Think of the monstrous ego of the vampire. He thinks himself so important that he is willing to live forever, even under the dreary conditions imposed by his condition. Avoiding the sun, sleeping in coffins, feared by all, he nurses his resentments. In "Bram Stoker's Dracula," the new film by Francis Ford Coppola, the vampire shakes his fist at heaven and vows to wait forever for the return of the woman he loves. It does not occur to him that after the first two or three centuries he might not seem all that attractive to her.... Coppola directs with all the stops out, and the actors perform as if afraid they will not be audible in the other theaters of the multiplex. The sets are grand opera run riot - Gothic extravaganza intercut with the Victorian London of gaslights and fogbound streets, rogues in top hats and bad girls in bustiers.

LITTLE did you suspect that the world has been dying for yet another film variation on "Dracula," Bram Stoker's classic of 19th-century gothic fiction. Yet Francis Ford Coppola's new extravaganza, suitably titled "Bram Stoker's 'Dracula' " to separate it from all others, is such a dizzy tour of movie-making forces that it comes close to overwhelming all reasonable doubts....This "Dracula" is most easily enjoyed if you don't search too hard for meanings, at least for those that go beyond the idea that the Stoker novel is really about Victorian England's fear of unleashed female sexuality. Interpretations can be fun, but they are also misleading.... In a movie of such over-the-top frenzy and opulence, however, performances and people do not stand out as much as the kaleidoscopic results. This movie was imagined, written and directed, then somehow engineered into being as if it were one long, uninterrupted special effect.

Francis Ford Coppola’s take on the Dracula legend is a bloody visual feast. Both the most extravagant screen telling of the oft-filmed story and the one most faithful to its literary source, this rendition sets grand romantic goals for itself that aren’t fulfilled emotionally, and it is gory without being at all scary. The Dracula name, such as it is, and a mighty promotional push by Columbia for its Friday the 13th opening should generate some strong early frame numbers, but pic’s extreme adult nature will significantly limit potential with younger auds, and reaction is bound to be decidedly mixed.