The atmospheric opening is the best part--moody and full of sinister potential. After that, it's stilted drawing-room talk, variably acted, except for the cultish over-the-top dementia of Dwight Frye. Still, DRACULA is the film that started the 1930s horror cycle, secured Universal's
position as
the horror studio, and made Hungarian actor Bela Lugosi a worldwide curiosity.
Following the successful stage play rather than Bram Stoker's classic novel, the film opens in Transylvania, where Renfield (Dwight Frye), a British real estate salesman, arrives to arrange the sale of a deserted English manor house to a strange nobleman, Count Dracula (Lugosi). The mys...
Released:
1931
Rated:
NR
Length:
84 mins