It's a visual and emotional feast that is satisfying in every respect, beginning with a brief history of Dracula and the circumstances of his life that ultimately allied him with the forces of darkness and evil. Unsettling at times, and often shocking, the film is mesmerizing and thoroughly engrossing, delivered with a full palette of colors and shadows that form a backdrop against which the characters so vividly emerge to play out the drama. Working from a screenplay (by James Victor Hart) that is a faithful adaptation of the novel, Coppola takes an artistic approach to the material and creates some startling and effective images- some quite intense and erotic- to tell the story of Count Dracula and his world of the undead.

The most famous vampire in the history of literature and film is brought graphically to life in `Bram Stoker's Dracula,' directed by Francis Ford Coppola, and starring Gary Oldman as the Count from Transylvania.