Caught this flick last night. Need to add my two cents. For whatever reason, Coppola decided to make this as anti-Victorian as possible.

Van Helsing lecturs of syphilis, Seward does morphine and basically tortures his patients. I'm surprised Quincy didn't ever say "I sure wish we hadn't freed the slaves so I could beat them." Lucy is a sex fiend and Mina is a modern woman straining against societal bonds. The first thing they show at the olde Victorian theater is porn. Dracula is the good guy and the way of life the heroes are defending is crap on a stick.

I could overlook the ridiculous costumes, terribly overdone special effects, and even the love-story (to a degree) if it wasn't for the directors overwhelimg desire to flip the meaning of the book a complete 180 degrees.

It's like if they redid Star Wars, and not only tried to make Vader sympathetic, but also showed that the rebels were a bunch of asses and Vader was actually morally in the right the whole time... (didn't they actually do that with Thrawn?)