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Review of Dracula: A Love Tale (Danny Elfman)

FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:

Buy it... to hear Danny Elfman apply his trademark brooding melodrama to this classic concept, his loyal main theme appealingly troubled while avoiding outward romanticism.

Avoid it... to hear Danny Elfman apply the trademarks of Wojciech Kilar and Christopher Young to this score as well, nagging temp-track questions likely for learned film score collectors.

FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Dracula: A Love Tale: (Danny Elfman) Among the countless adaptations of the classic Bram Stoker concept is French director Luc Besson's 2025 version, Dracula: A Love Tale, which pours on the dark melodrama and intrigue for a conservatively conventional interpretation. Casting aside the true horror of the concept in favor of interpersonal agony, the titular vampire becomes obsessed with a woman who resembles one he had loved four centuries earlier. The movie spends a significant amount of time dwelling upon Dracula himself rather than immersing itself in the mystery or intrigue of his presence and motivations. The movie's release in France and a selection of other countries in the summer of 2025 didn't translate into a wider international distribution, perhaps because audience reactions to its script and CGI effects were widely negative. Some have commented that this movie is a bad reimagining of Francis Ford Coppola's 1992 movie Bram Stoker's Dracula but with poor cast chemistry and a loss of its epic scope in Besson's seeming focus on attracting younger audiences with a heartthrob variation on the tune. Receiving rather neutral response was Danny Elfman's score for Dracula: A Love Tale, which is somewhat surprising given the composer's enduringly immense popularity despite embarrassing accusations from female colleagues at the time. His career slowed in the early 2020's, Elfman seemingly more content performing on stage and tackling scoring assigns of personal interest for family and friends. With this assignment, though, came an admitted opportunity to finally score a Dracula-related film. He had written music for ancillary topics through the years, notably for Dark Shadows, but Besson offered him the chance to finally unleash his morbid sensibilities on the most famous of all gothic concepts. His approach to Dracula: A Love Tale is quite predictable, fitting squarely in the composer's wheelhouse. The resulting score is not the easiest of listening experiences, but it's an accomplished representation of the Dracula character if you're approaching it from a tortured romantic perspective of slightly dissonant tumult.

The score for Dracula: A Love Tale is thoroughly saturated with Elfman's mannerisms in instrumentation and tone, but it's also a curious entry that liberally references the techniques of Wojciech Kilar and Christopher Young, begging for temp-track speculation. Nobody will mistake this music for that of those other composers, but the outside influence in melody and style is definitely present. The Budapest orchestral performance is adequate all around and conveys mystery and malice well, but the size of the ensemble doesn't sound particularly resounding as orchestrated. Don't expect broad strokes of tonal magnificence for the full sonic range, the work balancing high and low elements while minimizing those in the middle, especially in the woodwinds. Low brass and low strings are joined by chimes and thumping percussion in the base, a solo cello conveying aggressive malice throughout. There isn't as much instrumental creativity as one might hope, the celeste and music box combination a bit stereotypical here, and the only other unusual contributors of note are hints of duduk in "Blessings" and harpsichord in "The Dance" for that nicely unique, almost source-like cue. Electronics are present as support, including an electric bass standard to Elfman's more contemporary leanings. Rarely do these elements interfere with the time period, though metallic grinding and synthetic dissonance does force its way into "A Bloody Meal" in distracting ways. Much of the score is merely textural, with chords pulled from the themes as needed. One of the more sustained representatives of this atmosphere comes in "Big Trouble," and such material embraces tortured action in "Amore Mio" and "Last Combat." The narrative is largely monothematic, though that main idea comes in two adaptable parts that serve the film well enough. Listeners don't really receive any massively romantic representations of those themes, even at the end, but the engrossing final ten minutes of the score still manage to dominate the listening experience on album. It's a work that requires patience and a willingness to rearrange the score's lyrical highlights as needed to achieve a dose of melancholic Elfman drama worthy of a place in a collection of his work.

Most listeners will appreciate that the main theme from Dracula: A Love Tale is expressed in an expected fashion, especially in its secondary phrasing, which resembles Elfman's classic Sommersby. The primary phrase functions as a waltz movement that suits the European formality of the idea well, but film music collectors will find this idea highly reminiscent of Christopher Young's remarkably effective The Piper from 2023, a point of distraction that could be really difficult to shake. This main phrasing debuts right away in a detuned music box effect over troubled atmospheres at 0:17 into "Music Box," where it builds layers of accompaniment from strings and voices for moderate lyricism. Elfman withholds the more fluid secondary phrasing at this point. The main phrase shifts to elegant female vocal at 3:18 into "Blessings" while sickly solo cello lines late in "Asylum" remind of Young's Drag Me to Hell. With more elegance on piano at the outset of "Dinner," Elfman finally explores the romantic Sommersby-like secondary sequence but only briefly. The composer develops the theme's romantic side better in "A Very Sad Story" with piano, solo voice, and strings. Expanding that sound into fuller resonance in the deep choral appeal of "Neverending Death," Elfman allows the secondary lines to become especially prominent in this cue, aided by piano. He shifts the main theme to harpsichord and an almost Latin beat and some choral humor in "The Dance" but continues its more lushly dramatic personality in the piano waltz of "Only Dust." After that, the tone shifts from piano to strings in the more emotional "She's Back," where secondary lines later flourish nicely on the piano. The idea is somber on solo cello in "Let It Be," leading back to solo vocals over piano alongside strings, and it's disassembled to its bare bones in the sparse string agony of "Gypsy Arriving." Elfman pairs choral beauty with the celeste and piano for the theme in "It's Her," secondary lines then explored more extensively on piano over strings in "Carnival." He returns wholesale to the opening music box tones in "Remembering" but allows the cue to shift to evocative solo female voice and fuller female choir for more allure, segueing into a successful attempt to gain warmth from the ensemble in the middle of "My Husband."

Elfman turns the main theme sinister once again on threatening strings and choir over synths in "He's Here," using the identity to punctuate the surprisingly muscular brass action in "Last Combat." The theme really excels in the final trio of resolution cues, however, the music box approach joined by brass and choral chants in "Eternal Love," though the tone shifts towards lighter James Newton Howard shades by the cue's end. The idea becomes slightly elegant on piano and oboe in "Amen," the electric bass providing warmer contemporary tonalities that may not please all listeners. But outstanding all around is the monumentally massive performance of the main theme on brass and strings over pounding timpani at the outset of "End Credits," the action highlight the actual narrative never allowed before. Elfman's music box effect returns in this cue's midsection for a faintly romantic interlude, and the theme's flowing secondary lines occupy the last minute or so of the cue. Expect the Sommersby resemblances to really start to shine in these final portions of the recording. Separate from the main theme are two other modes that recur in the score, first the composer's obvious nod to the harshly dark tone of Wojciech Kilar's Bram Stoker's Dracula. This influence is increasingly driving and oppressive in the tonalities of "Blessings," though it's also dripping with Christopher Young horror bravado by the end as well. The Kilar connections continue with throbbing, disturbing attraction in "Don't Leave," and the second half of "Frozen Lake" briefly pushes this sound towards Phillip Glass territory. The only recurring secondary theme of note from Elfman is one of investigation and mystery, a propulsive, lightly rhythmic identity of minor mode determination. This motif is developed well throughout "Detective Work" and toils briefly late in "A Very Sad Story." It's stripped down to sparse rhythmic suspense in "A Few Questions" with a burst of chanting and explodes in the second half of "A Bloody Meal" with choir and synths in battle. Ultimately, though, it's the tandem of main theme identities that propels Elfman's focus in Dracula: A Love Tale. There is upwards of twenty minutes of this material in accessible form on album, and it's dripping with the composer's dark sensibilities. While some listeners will be troubled by the potential temp-track emulations, there's enough pure Elfman gloominess of brooding allure to confidently recommend.  ****

TRACK LISTINGS:

Total Time: 66:08

• 1. Music Box (2:54) • 2. Blessings (4:34) • 3. Asylum (3:00) • 4. Dinner (0:55) • 5. Detective Work (2:08) • 6. Don't Leave (0:59) • 7. Big Trouble (2:39) • 8. A Very Sad Story (3:24) • 9. Neverending Death (2:20) • 10. The Dance (2:09) • 11. Only Dust (1:49) • 12. She's Back (2:46) • 13. A Few Questions (3:16) • 14. A Bloody Meal (3:31)

• 15. Let It Be (2:47) • 16. Frozen Lake (1:25) • 17. Gypsy Arriving (2:06) • 18. It's Her (0:56) • 19. Carnival (2:49) • 20. Remembering (1:14) • 21. My Husband (2:51) • 22. He's Here (1:39) • 23. Amore Mio (1:29) • 24. Last Combat (1:27) • 25. Eternal Love (1:58) • 26. Amen (4:35) • 27. End Credits (4:31)

NOTES & QUOTES:

There exists no official packaging for this album.

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