Dir. Tod Browning (1931)
A Tranyslvanian Count purchases a property in London, sleeping during the day and hunting for victims in the night.
It can be difficult to find enjoyment in old horror movies, especially ones that have been retold time and time again. Dracula is a bit different, however, as Bela Lugosi's fabled Count is one of the most monumental characters in the history of the genre. For many fans, the very word vampire brings to mind the character of Dracula, with either Lugosi or Christopher Lee's face half-hidden by his cape as he bares his fangs. It is Dracula, however, that establishes the lore and the character himself, paving the way for literally dozens of followup films and entrenching the vampire as one of the most enduring villains in all of horror. While horror tends to be as fad-y as any other genre, you can be sure that it won't be long before there is another slate of vampire flicks making their way to your screens, with very little difference in the lore regardless of the rest of the plot. Dracula is responsible for almost all of it, and it's an excellent film besides.
Count Dracula (Lugosi) is making his way to London to purchase a large property from the realtor Renfield (Dwight Frye), where he runs afoul of Professor Harker (David Manners) and eventual vampire hunter Van Helsing (Edward Van Sloan). The Count intends to lure Mina (Helen Chandler), the daughter of a local doctor, into his harem of vampiric women, and it is up to Harker and Van Helsing to stop him. As the insane Renfield does his best to abet Dracula's quest and the vampire himself becomes more and more dangerous, the professor and the hunter are faced with a new, blood-sucking danger that they never new existed before.
There's something interesting about this period of horror and its reliance on foreign threats. Horror has always been fascinated with The Other, threats that come from far away to wreak havoc and bloodshed on the local populace, wherever that happens to be. Dracula is no different, an Eastern European threat to British civilization straight off the tail end of World War I and, well, it's Eastern European threat to British civilization. Whether these two are related is subject to debate, but it's an interesting theory nonetheless. It's difficult for audiences to imagine that the danger can be coming from inside their own worlds, so filmmakers decide to give them a foreign menace of which to be afraid.
Regardless of the source of its evils, Dracula is an iconic film filled with amazing lines and some truly stellar performances. It's perfectly gothic, an incredibly eerie feeling film that plays with shadows, architecture, and primitive special effects in order to make its audience uneasy in a way that they had never experienced before. It's old hat now, and the scares of course don't stand up to modern scrutiny. Still, Lugosi is chilling even now, his accented delivery of lines leaving a lasting influence on the genre even if the fears no longer have quite the impact that they once did. I can imagine being a kid in the 30's, knowing that what I saw was a movie but not quite sure that Dracula himself wouldn't be lurking behind my curtains when I got home. (Side note: I've always thought that Don't Fear the Reaper was a reference to the scene in this film when Dracula flies in through the window, the curtains flapping as he hovers in bat form and beckons Mina to come with him to certain death and eternal companionship. Food for thought, I suppose.)
Tod Browning is a genius, and Dracula is unquestionably his masterpiece. It has a brilliant classical score, an early use of melodic violins to create an uneasy feeling and provide an ethereal appeal to Dracula's specific brand of mind control. The stark lines of the architecture, at times calling back to Robert Wiene'sThe Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, is phenomenal, as is his use of darkness and space. He gets the absolute most out of Lugosi, and he gives us plenty of the vampiric Count. Sometimes, less is more, but Lugosi is so good that more, in this case, is more. Despite the slow plot, a consequence of the period in which the film is made, it's still fairly exciting and almost perfectly done. While some of the Universal Monster films are only relevant because they were made before anything else, it's easy to see why Dracula has had such a lasting appeal. Cuz it's a really fucking good movie.
Who this movie is for: Universal horror lovers, Vampire movie fans, Easily impressionable women
Bottom line: Dracula is scary and its impressively done, with Lugosi delivering perhaps the most important performance in horror movie history. Single-handedly creating the vampire genre and providing plenty of fodder for future undead films, Dracula is probably the most impressive of the Universal Monster films from a straight horror perspective. It's a must see for horror fans, and while it probably won't scare you, it's a movie you should watch regardless. Unfortunately, it's not streaming anywhere right now, though I do recommend checking it out on The Internet Archive if you can't find it elsewhere. Then again, Universal has released the movie dozens of times, and there are some truly excellent sets featuring this film, its sequels, and many of the other Classic Monster series.
