| Year of Release | 1931 |
| Director | Tod Browning |
| Starring | Bela Lugosi |
Time to sit at home and watch an all time classic. That classic is the Universal Studios version of Dracula. Hailing from 1931 this is vintage as all hell. The film, directed by Tod Browning really takes you back to another time. Also watching it on VHS really helps. This of course features veteran actor of almost every horror movie from the era, Bela Lugosi. He does a fine job of portraying the fanged one.
I’m not sure if there’s any real point in outlining the plot, as lets face it, this is the 4th Dracula movie I’ve reviewed on this blog. The plot of this movie never changes much. However the filming techniques and the technology used at the time really does. This being made in 1931 there is virtually no technology used in this film. It is however a step up from the orginal “Nosferatu” from only a few years previous to this. Lo and behold it has sound and music on the same recording! The previous version had filmed visuals. It had a sound track of sort but being seperate from the film, it was unfortunately lost in time.
I’m going to say it bluntly, the original Nosferatu film from a few years before this is a much darker affair. The Vampire we all know and love was originally portrayed as a much more ghoulish, fiendish character. Here in this film, he is a suited up, camped up version of the vampire in “Nosferatu”. This is all cool, by the way. I guess its two different takes on the same story. The story and the way it’s portrayed still hold up very well, and this is still a land mark movie in the history of horror.
The main difference between this and the original is that Universal Studios were smart enough to actually pay Bram Stokers estate for the rights to film before making it. Where as at this point I believe Nosferatu was banished back to the almost eternally dark crypt of copyright infringement so the film wasn’t able to be seen anyway. Universal films, however went on to have a huge success with this one, and it paved the way for a whole bunch of horror films and characters such as “The Mummy” and “Frankenstein” to really start building the genre as a whole.
I would fully recommend Dracula to anyone with an interest in the arcane. Besides being a cool watch its a trip back in time to see how film making progressed through the ages. You won’t have to pay much, as its probably in the basement bargain bin at your local DVD store. The VHS copy, however might slightly more expensive.
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