Dracula: 1931

Synopsis

The ancient vampire Count Dracula arrives in England and begins to prey upon the virtuous young Mina. 

   Happy Halloween everyone!  For today's review I needed to have something special, and I think that Iv'e found it.  "Dracula", from 1931.  For anyone that knows film, this was a very important time because it was the birth of a new era, "The Golden Age".  This was the time that all the iconic monsters came out; The Wolf Man, The creature from the black lagoon, The Mummy, Frankenstein, and Dracula.  This is a very important movie because it marked many timeless classics to remembered forever.  One of the many aspects about the film generates from the Hungarian actor, Bela Lugosi.  Of course this was a sudonym for his real name, Bela Blasko.  But to be respectful I don't refer to him by this name.  His character of Dracula would forever set the way future Dracula's acted, sounded, and looked.  But, it's a bit confusing being the fact that, "Nosferatu", the original Dracula, takes place in Germany, but the icon of Dracula is Hungarian.  But aside from that, these two films should be looked at separately, mainly because, "Dracula" had the film rights to be based off of the Bram Stoker novel, and, "Nosferatu" didn't.  


   Lets talk about the atmosphere.  For any good film, an effective ambiance is required, and Todd Browning pulled this off very accurately.  Every type of horror setting is put into play. There are dark, dilapidated castle walls, bats, carriages, dungeons, cobwebs, and midnight fog.  Everything about it just screams horror authenticity.  The music, if any, consists of, "Swan Lake", which only appears in the credits.

   I really like this.  It kind of shows the unlimited occasions you could use this in.  I find that if you are watching this film and not the play, "Swan Lake", you'll find that its quite intriguing to have music that feels so different from other horror films.  But it feels like it's meant to be there, somehow.  Bela Lugosi's Dracula is much the same as it is different from other Dracula's.  He is very humble, and polite with his victims, unlike Christopher Lee, in the Hammer films, but I'll get into that later.    


  Now, to be fair, I don't really know which of the movies follows the book the closest, and I still can't decide which of the films I like the best.  However these aren't all of the Dracula films.  Many productions of this horror icon have been re-imagined, remade, and resurrected, more notably from Hammer Films.  This was a production agency used solely to bring the golden age back to life.  Every, and I mean every monster was brought back in their own feature length film. As for the quality of it all, I cannot say because I have never seen a Hammer Horror Film, I just know of it.  


  A very special thing about this film in particular, is the fact that, with the golden age, comes the age of sound.  So, if you have ever seen, "Dracula" before, you have watched the first horror talkie.  However, my only complaint is that although there is talking, there isn't any music to back it up.  It's in this way that, "Dracula" can get a little slow.  But I think that the character's make up a bit for that.  I'm talking about the actor that plays Renfield, Dwight Fry.  His character in, "Nosferatu", was the one that sells Count Orlok his house.  However, in this film he slowly goes crazy and kind of reminds me of the character from, "The Vampire Bat", who also goes insane.  You know, there seems to be a pattern with characters in Vampire film history.  There always seems to be a crazy person in each of the films.  I don't know why.


  Anyway this concludes my review of, "Dracula".  Now for my verdict.  This was a very good movie.  It was mostly from Bela Lugosi, but it's different than, "White Zombie", because in that movie he was holding everything up.  In this, he deserves to act with these people, because they aren't actually that bad.  The only problem that I might have for this film is that there isn't any music forgetting the opening credits.  I think I'll give this film a similar rating to that of, "Nosferatu", because I like them both, but in different ways.  Dracula had a sense of great feeling with each role and was pure horror at its finest, and, "Nosferatu" gave off a captivating conceptual feel to the architecture and characters around them.  I don't think that you have to even like horror to enjoy this.  Unfortunately I can't show, "Dracula" to you on this site.  If your lucky enough to be able to rent this masterpiece, I encourage you to check it out, and Happy Halloween!

I give this film 8 "Children of the night" out of 10 

P.S

   

   I really liked how this review turned out, and I'm going to try and to review a, "Golden Age" film every Halloween.  Thanks for reading.