This movie is the main reason that most people know about Dracula, specifically, Bela Lugosi’s iconic performance. I first saw this movie because my dad bought a box set of the Universal horror movies. Thanks, Dad.

“An estate agent, Renfield, travels to Transylvania to complete a real estate transaction with Count Dracula. Unbeknown to Renfield however – despite warnings of evil by some of the locals – Dracula is a vampire and the visitor is soon his unwilling servant. They travel by ship to England but by the time it makes port, an insane Renfield is the only living passenger. Count Dracula moves into Carfax Abbey and immediately sets out to possess the beautiful Mina, who lives next door. It’s left Professor Van Helsing – who knows exactly what Dracula is – to stop the spread of his evil.”

Even if you have never seen this movie, you have definitely seen many references from it. From that specific accent for vampires to the stereotypical vampire costume. If anyone has seen the movie Renfield, this is what they are referring to in the flashback in that movie.  That being said if you have never seen a movie like this one you should know that this movie is 71 minutes long and the only music is in the opening credits.

There are three things I would like to talk about.

Firstly, Renfield. More specifically, the fact that this movie has Renfield going to Transylvania to meet Dracula instead of Jonathan Harker. This is interesting, especially because we still see Renfield as a lunatic in this adaptation. Which begs the question, what did Dracula do to him? That being said, Dwight Frye is my second favorite actor in this movie. My first is Bela Lugosi.

Secondly, they cut down the men who fight against Dracula. This comes in two different ways, firstly the fact that they removed Quincy and Arthur from the movie and while it does make slightly more sense because this movie was made on a low budget, meaning they may have needed to cut any unnecessary characters. But this does mean that we lose some interesting charicters. Secondly, Doctor John Steward. In this version, he is Minas’ father instead of Lucy’s suitor. This means that there is no man who swore to protect Lucy and promised to fight to stop Dracula. Along with the fact that in this movie, Johnathan Harker is just Mina’s fiancé. As a result, in this movie it is only Doctor Van Helsing who knows what Dracula is and what he is capable of. In the end, this movie comes down to Dracula vs Van Helsing.

Thirdly, for anyone who has read my previous Dracula review, I mentioned that there were things that people will expect in the book that aren’t in there. By this I mean the fact that Lucy and Dracula meet and flirt. There is a romance between one of the two women in this story and Dracula in every adaptation.

Thank you for reading this and until next week, when we look at Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

Happy reading to all and to all a good night.