Dracula (1931)

Original title

Drácula

Directed by

George Melford

Genre

drama film, horror film, vampire film

Country

United States

Runtime

1h 44m

Rated

+13

Rating

6.8 of 10 from 142 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A vampire count named Drácula leaves his castle in Transylvania to prey on victims in England. He pursues a young woman while a doctor tries to stop him.

gothiceerieslow-burnatmosphericunsettlingclassicshadowymoody

What happens

Dracula is a 1931 Spanish-language American horror film directed by George Melford. The film is based on both the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker and its 1924 play adaptation by Hamilton Deane and John L. Balderston. It follows the eponymous vampire Conde Drácula as he travels from Transylvania to England to prey upon new victims. The film stars Carlos Villarías as Drácula, alongside Barry Norton, Pablo Alvarez Rubio, and Eduardo Arozamena. Dracula was made as part of Hollywood studios' attempts to make films for foreign-language audiences. By 1930, Universal had focused primarily on developing Spanish-language films for the foreign market. Filming began on October 10, 1930, where it was shot on the same sets as Tod Browning's production of Dracula. Director Melford regularly watched daily filming from Browning's production, and applied what he saw to film his own version. The film was released in Cuba in 1931 and for a long time was forgotten, only mentioned briefly by some horror film historians in the 1960s and 1970s. It received greater attention after a print for the film was found in New Jersey. A screening at the Museum of Modern Art in August 1977 led to a popular home video release on VHS in 1992. Critical reception to this film often compared the two versions of Dracula with some critics weighing the pros and cons of both based on the explicitness of the Spanish version with its costumes and scenes, the film's length, and the performance of Carlos Villarías as Count Dracula. In 2015, Dracula was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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