10 Horror Movie Casting Choices That Should've Worked (But Didn't)
8. Anthony Hopkins - Bram Stoker’s Dracula
Francis Ford Copolla’s lush, po-faced vampire tale is a star studded affair. Some of the casting makes sense (Winona Ryder, Richard E Grant), some worked better than expected (Cary Elwes, Gary Oldman), some were just odd (Keanu Reeves).
The outlier in all of this is Anthony Hopkins, whose performance as Van Helsing seems somewhat phoned in. As the doctor-cum-vampire expert, he wears a wispy wig, does a bit of a Dutch accent, and sometimes ups the energy as he espouses his theories on creatures of the night. And that’s about it.
It feels at times as though a decision was made to let Gary Oldman and Gary Oldman alone have fun for the two-hours-plus duration of the film. While he preens, mugs, and plays to the back row, Hopkins languishes in a role given mostly to exposition and explaining to other characters what to do next.
The source material can be blamed here to a degree - the film is mostly quite faithful and it was a while before Van Helsing became the heroic vampire killer he’s often pictured as - but it feels a waste of Hopkins at arguably the peak of his powers. Having stolen Silence Of The Lambs in a quarter of an hour, here he’s just a bit dull.