Check out Stoker’s ‘Dracula,’ by way of Coppola

Above: Gary Oldman stars as Count Dracula in Francis Ford Coppola's 1992 film "Bram Stoker's Dracula." (Photo/Columbia Pictures)

On Thursday I wrote about one of the most influential horror (some scholars term it science fiction) novels every written: Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein.”

Today I write about another: Bram Stoker’s “Dracula.”

Irish-born Stoker wrote “Dracula” in 1897. Acclaimed by many critics, the novel’s influence has been profound, having been adapted dozens of times in a range of media, from movies to stage plays, television shows and even comic books.

Moreover, the characters of Dracula himself and the vampire-hunter Van Helsing have both become literal icons of the bloodsucking genre.

As for movies, perhaps the best known version is Tod Browning’s 1931 effort, which stars Bela Lugosi as the title character. But other, more acclaimed filmmakers, have tackled Stoker’s novel, too.

One prominent tackler of the novel was Francis Ford Coppola. And Coppola’s effort, 1992’s “Bram Stoker’s Dracula,” will screen Sunday and Thursday in a special 30th-anniversary event at Regal’s NorthTown Mall theater. Sunday’s shows will be at 3 and 7 p.m., Thursday’s at 7 p.m. only.

Gary Oldman, who would win an Oscar in 2018 for portraying Winston Churchill in "Darkest Hour," stars as the title character, while the cast is rounded out with Winona Ryder, Keanu Reeves and a two-time Oscar winner, Anthony Hopkins (who stars a Van Helsing).

Reviewing the film in Time magazine, Richard Corliss wrote, “This luscious film restores the creature's nobility and gives him peace.”

Roger Ebert had a different take. “The movie is an exercise in feverish excess,” he wrote, “and for that if for little else, I enjoyed it.”

Meanwhile, Newsweek critic David Ansen was just a tad more negative.

“Coppola's remake,” he wrote, “throws so much fancy technique at its story that the usually foolproof drama at its core gets drowned in a tide of images. It's not scary, it's not suspenseful and its eroticism is largely theoretical.”

As always, though, it’s you who get to have the final vote.