So it's your ironic hipster Dracula, then. I’ve written elsewhere at length about my distaste, or dislike, or just plain irritation with vampires. It’s so sexy because they bite you and then you’re like immortal and stuff. Uh huh. Sociopathic Eurotrash, if you ask me. It all goes back to the main guy, the first fella what pierced a dame’s artery and made the crowds at the flickers shudder with dread. It all goes back to this movie. It begins in the land of Matteshotvia:
We meet Hedda Hopper, back from the stylist:
Actually, she’s one of the brides, living in a filthy unfinished basement owned by this guy:
Lugosi is great. To state the obvious. To restate what everyone has said for years. Hammy but mesmerizing, charming but creepy, he identifies a type that can be parodied today, 80 years later, and almost everyone who has been exposed to Western Civilization understands what you’re referring to.
If only he was in a scary movie. It’s not. It’s slow. It’s poorly paced. It has great long dull stretches that make it feel like it was made by people who barely understood the new medium of sound, let along film. The real star of the film, acting like he’s in some nutjob German expressionist cabaret number, is Renfeild:
His laugh is creepier than anything Dracula does. Because sometimes Dracula just looks like he has bad gas, or that breakfast sandwich is really having a hard time making the turn:
As I’ve said before, though, imagine that bearing down on you from the big screen, and you can see why it worked.
The trailer, from a rerelease:
Someone put it all up on YouTube in chunks; the first ten minutes show you what the rest of the movie could have been if they'd kept it up.
Next installment tomorrow; click here to go back to the Bleat. Or here to go to the Main Monster Menu.
