Here's a Halloween Countdown treat, one we have never done until now! In our story, the ancient vampire Count Dracula arrives in England and begins to prey upon the virtuous young lady, Mina. The monster has arrived!! One strange thing about this movie is that there's absolutely no music from beginning to end!
I showed the Realart poster from when it was reissued in 1951, 20 years after it was originally released. A truly awesome horror poster!!
It stars Bela (WHITE ZOMBIE) Lugosi, Helen (DANCE HALL HOSTESS) Chandler, David (THE MUMMY) Manners, Dwight (FRANKENSTEIN) Frye, Edward (DRACULA'S DAUGHTER) Van Sloan, Herbert (THE MONKEY'S PAW) Bunston and Frances (THE SHE-WOLF) Dade.
After a harrowing ride through the Carpathian mountains in eastern Europe, Renfield is told what he can expect to find at Dracila's castle from a local. But, Renfield doesn't believe in silly superstitions...
So, the carriage only takes Renfield so far and he must take another one to get to Dracula's castle. He's picked up by a mysterious mute character (Dracula) and rides away into the night...
Renfield is there to finalize the transferral of Carfax Abbey in London to Count Dracula. After the papers are signed, Dracula drugs Renfield and he's doomed to do the vampire's bidding...
Here are Dracula's playmates, they'd love to dig their fangs into Renfield's neck!
The voyage to London doesn't go well for the ship's crew, as you can see. The authorities also find Renfield in the hold, he's now a raving lunatic!
Once in London, Dracula seeks out a pretty young lady, and Mina is her name-o!
At the Seward Sanitarium, Renfield is catching and eating insects like flies and spiders, he thinks that their blood will keep him alive! A worker grabs his meal and tosses it out, making Renfield extremely agitated!
Old Drac has fanged Mina in the neck and she's starting to have strange feelings. Van Helsing inspects the bite marks and tells the others that she has been bitten by a vampire!
When the count shows up for a visit, Van Helsing notices that there is no image of him in a mirror. He plays a trick on Dracula and shows him the box with a mirror in it. He immediately knocks the box out of our hero's hands with a look of anger, and he leaves...
Later, when Dracula tries to impose his will on Van Helsing, well, a small cross sends the vampire running for the exit. Love the look on Bela's face!
It had to happen, when Dracula thinks Renfield has inadvertently brought people to the castle, he tosses the little guy down the stairs!
Van Helsing and John Harker are there to save Mina for the vampire's clutches, where they locate Dracula sleeping in his coffin!
It's fairly anti climactic when Van Helsing quietly puts a stake through the vampire's heart, as Drac just goes... Ugh! That's it. Then Van Helsing proclaims that Dracula is dead, never ever to return! WTF?!.. How many freakin' vampire movies are there anyway, jeez!.. Like, join us again on Wednesday when we'll hand out more Halloween Countdown Treats!!
5 comments:
A tad slow, and not the scariest movie, but still so classic and atmospheric. Love the "children of the night..." scene.
Watched part of DRACULA '31 recently on the SVENGOOLIE show, and was beginning to feel like something was off...I realized that it had music. Fairly quiet but oddly enough, a music background. I'm not certain, but it seems this is Universal's doing, to bring the film up to "modern standards" I guess they would say. Very strange.
I read the novel before I watched any of the movie adaptations. While I enjoyed this one, I think it doesn't hold a candle to the source material.
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Hey Dewd, DRACULA (1931) does so have music: "Swan Lake" is heard over the opening credits. In the 1990s, Avant Garde composer Phillip Glass composed a modern minimalistic score -- a highly annoying one, to compliment the video re-release. It is justifiably forgotten.
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