Drácula (1931) Review - Dylan McCully

Written by Dylan McCully, 10/21/22

Dylan McCully's Cinema: https://www.imdb.com/list/ls521125877/

This will be a brief review, as I've already reviewed two Dracula movies in the past couple days. The reason for writing this is to contrast the film with it's American counterpart produced concurrently. Which one is superior? Most of the times you'll here that it's this one, which I don't disagree with, but I also think it's closer than some might think. One thing that is clearly superior about this Spanish version is the visual style - it actually has one. Where the American Dracula felt like a stageplay, the Spanish Dracula feels like a film. Although it uses the exact same sets as it's American counterpart, the mise en scene is more effective along with the use of more engaging camera angles. For those reasons this is probably better than the Browning version. What's odd is the fact that this only started to be considered better than the original, and remembered at all, in the late 70's, when it was screened at the Museum of Modern Art, and then released on VHS in 1992. What I find to be lacking is the performance of Carlos Villarias as Dracula. Lugosi's performance was a perfect fit, where Villarias just doesn't deliver his lines or have the motions down in the same way. And actually, I prefer Max Schleck and Klaus Kinski's portrayals to the rest, as they are the onlt ones who feel truely unnerving; inhuman. Most vampires these days are just normal people who wear dark clothes and have pale skin, like the emo kids at school. Schleck and Kinski felt not just sinister, but genuninely nightmarish in terms of appearance and movement (and line delivery for Kinski). Another con of the Spanish is the unneeded extra thirty minutes, usually just adding extraneous dialogue. Overall, this feels like a complete vision - a complete film - compared to Browning's Dracula but lacked a truely memorable portrayal of Dracula. 5.5/10

A great video for a more in depth comparison would be this analysis from the YouTube channel Rambling Director: youtu.be/uF_ho3E2QxQ

George Melford Ranked:

1. Drácula (1931) - 5.5/10