Im gonna keep this one brief because im pretty sure every man and his dog has seen the original Bela Lugosi ‘Dracula’, admittedly it’s been a few years since I last gave this one a spin, but the confession that I have about this one, is that I really just dont vibe with it. I was always much more of a ‘Frankenstein’ Universal guy honestly.
The reasons for my dislike are pretty simple, maybe a tad controversial, but understandable.
The film is marketed as ‘The beginning of the Universal Monster Movie series!’ but at the time this was sold as a romance film with horror elements more than anything else, and thats kind of what this is. I dont have a problem with Romance films when they’re done well, but the surprising thing I found with this film is that, even clocking in at only 84 minutes its PAINFULLY slow. 30s cinema was notorious for slow burn pacing and having to explain every single detail of the plot to the audience (presumably because subtext wasnt invented until the ‘atomic age’) but here, its particularly crawling. Its just scene after scene of people dumping exposition in rooms, atmostpheric rooms! but rooms non the less.
Honestly, I can ringfence the things I like about this film in a VERY succinct way, I love the ‘German Expressionist’ influence in the set design and lighting choices, but I wish they’d have gone a bit deeper into it, this is a sanitized take on the expressionist movement and as such very much feels a bit of a pale imitation than something really defining.
I ADORE Bela Lugosi and Dwight Frye as Dracula and Renfield in this, Lugosi has a corpse like ambience that absolutely sells you on the ‘otherworldly’ role he’s trying to play, and for the early 30s Frye is astoundingly demented as Renfield and instantly watchable the moment things start getting a bit crazy.
I appreciate the lighting, I appreciate the score which I feel suits the film perfectly.
Had I seen this film in the 1930s, I could imagine i’d have been fairly impressed with the scale, depth and effects for the time, but this films pushing 100 years old at this point, and even when I first caught it 15 years ago I felt it was slowburn to the point of narcalepsy.
The first act for around the first 10 minutes or so is enjoyable enough and has some of the first twitches of the Universal charm, the final 20 minutes or so do ramp things up, but it made me wish that the energy of that last 20 minutes was the base line for the film, not the exception.
Its a film made up of a small smattering of interesting moments, lost in a gulf of overexplanation and restrictive censorship, on this rewatch, I actually failed to notice the film ended, because I checked a notification on my phone for 20 seconds and in that time they silently killed dracula and his henchmen, silently wrapped things up and ran the end titles silently before dumping me back into the menu, I actually had to wind back to see, what was effectively a kind of bland finale.
If you get a kick out of this film, good on you. Im honestly glad you see something here that I dont. But for me? this was a bit of an endurance test honestly, and if it wasnt for a couple superb performances, some striking lighting, set work and cine and a decent score behind it. I’d have fallen asleep by the 30 minute mark.
TYTD Reviews 