Dracula (1931)'s comments - page 2

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johnnyg

I found this painfully bad, especially compared to Frankenstein (1931).

13 years 11 months ago

"Make sure you watch this before you see Herzog's Nosferatu because it basically renders this movie ineffective"
- User "alexbergmans"

I agree with that because this film was completely boring to me. Not that I loved Nosferatu, but it handled the story WAY better!

10 years 7 months ago

mittens

i actually preferred dracula to frankenstein, which came out the same year. i agree this movie is unintentionally hillarious, but i think it makes it more watchable.

12 years 9 months ago

DisneyStitch

Watching this film is a bit like stepping back into time, sort of encasing yourself within a time capsule. It is pretty iconic though, you can feel Lugosi's magnetism and how it would inspire a cultural phenomenon regarding the blood-sucking undead. Dwight Frye as the absolute bonkers Renfield adds a lot to the film. He'd be a creepy character by today's standards, I can only imagine how audiences felt in 1931. The plot is a little disjointed especially how vampires operate but that has to be because we've seen a great expansion of the genre in modern cinema and are now looking back. This one set the stage.

3 years 6 months ago

Burningstardust

I prefer this to Frankenstein. But perhaps that's because I prefer the Dracula story to that of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and this is at any rate the more accurate adaptation of the two.
They're both great though, some amazing filmmaking. I enjoyed it a lot.

12 years 5 months ago

the3rdman

Lugosi is a classy Dracula, but I would take Klaus Kinski over him any day--although the nearly half-century gap does render my choice rather unfair to the former. Dwight Frye delivers a pretty good performance as Renfield. Great sets and atmosphere are weakened by some decidedly un-frightening critters--the bats seem particularly innocuous--and unintentionally (I assume) funny performances. Not to nit-pick, but I didn't know that Romania was inhabited by armadillos (although I found a brilliant and hilarious interpretation of that here: http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2011/10/hoisted-from-comments-the-armadillos-of-castle-dracula.html). Kind of fun to watch, but really the whole thing is bloody cheesy by today's standards. It's a bit hard to imagine this scaring anybody, even in 1931.

10 years 8 months ago

alexbergmans

Make sure you watch this before you see Herzog's Nosferatu because it basically renders this movie ineffective

10 years 10 months ago

criscoJovan

I will agree I enjoyed Frankenstein far more, but that's comparing apples to oranges. Like many classic - and it is indeed a classic - horror films, the atmosphere is really what makes it.

Also, the scene of Renfield's maniacal laughter below the deck is unforgettably terrific!

11 years 8 months ago

Siskoid

1931's Dracula with Bela Lugosi is worth seeing because it is iconic. However, it is at times painfully slow and theatrical. The latter is at least understandable given that it is more an adaptation of the stage play than Stoker's original novel, and Lugosi was cast precisely because he was in the stage play. But truth be told, while they do some interesting things with lighting to make his hypnotic tricks come alive, the possessed Renfield and Mina Harker are scarier than he is! But then, isn't that kind of the point? Universal more or less created the civilized, aristocratic, and suave Dracula with this picture, surely more insidious a villain than more monstrous portrayals. If it flags, it's in the middle once we reach London. While Edward Van Sloan is striking as Van Helsing, he's essentially an infodump device, making you realize we're too early for audiences to know all the vampire tropes by heart.

6 years 6 months ago