If during this Halloween season, or any other time, you find that you are in the mood for a vampire film, then please do not watch Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992).  It is gory and violent, and has enough nudity in it to make it borderline pornography.  Yet, I get it, people want, for whatever reason, to see something scary.  There are plenty of horror options out there, and one of the more popular choices is to watch something pertaining to those blood sucking creatures of the night.  And why not choose the grand, er, vampy of them all, Count Dracula?  Because most people despise anything that came out more than fifty years ago, they sadly more often go for the 1992 film.  I am here to offer you Dracula (1931).  It is the film that gave us most of the tropes we attach to Count Dracula (Bela Lugosi), particularly the look of the character.  It is also a better version, if cheesier, than the 1992 iteration, being essentially the same story.  However, the 1931 installment will leave you without a stain on your conscience, unlike its more modern cousin.

Before we meet Count Dracula, we see in the light of day the fastidious Renfield (Dwight Frye) taking a horse drawn coach through the Transylvanian mountains on his way to an appointment with the eponymous character.  Despite warnings from the locals, Renfield is determined to meet the odd pre-arranged time of midnight when he is to board the carriage that will take him to Count Dracula.  Ignoring further warning signs, like the fact that Renfield’s coachman turns into a bat or Count Dracula’s creepy castle, Renfield goes inside.  He has brought Count Dracula the deed to Carfax Abbey.  The member of Transylvanian aristocracy (I guess?) plans on relocating to this ruined structure outside of London, and he will be bringing Renfield with him . . . as a slave.  Renfield stays with his new master on his arduous sea voyage to England, and is the only reported survivor of ship when it washes ashore.  Raving about needing to eat insects, he is taken to the sanitarium of Dr. Seward (Herbert Bunston) for observation.  Meanwhile, it seems that the boxes of dirt with which Count Dracula shipped with him to his new home are delivered to the abbey.  He is now free to stalk the streets of London, which he promptly does.  His wanderings take him to a concert hall at which there is a symphony orchestra at play.  Using his powers of hypnosis, he gains access to the theater box occupied by Dr. Seward.  Count Dracula informs the physician that he is the new owner of Carfax Abbey, and that they are now neighbors.  Dr. Seward goes to take a phone call, leaving Count Dracula to chat with the others.  They are Mina Seward (Helen Chandler), Dr. Seward’s daughter, Mina’s fiancé John Harker (David Manners), and her friend Lucy Weston (Frances Dade).  Count Dracula is especially drawn to the women.  Later, once the Seward party is back home, which is also apparently attached to the sanitarium, Lucy and Mina discuss their thoughts on this dark newcomer.  Count Dracula wastes no time coming clandestinely in the night and feeding on Lucy.  She is discovered the next day, looking to be dead, and is examined by Dr. Seward, who notes the bite marks on her neck.  Working with him is Professor Van Helsing (Edward Van Sloan).  He is the first to identify the clues they are gathering as the work of a vampire.  His suggestions are met with incredulity until Count Dracula begins taking an interest in Mina.  His first official visit comes the night after he has already bitten her, beginning the process of turning her into a creature of the night.  Professor Van Helsing is in the room, and he notices that Count Dracula does not have a reflection in the mirror.  When the academic tricks the old blood sucker into peering into the looking glass, Count Dracula violently recoils and abruptly leaves.  Further evidence is given of the situation when Renfield manages to slip his bonds and starts spouting what sounds like crazed ramblings about the needs of his master.  Then there is Lucy being spotted wandering the grounds despite the fact that she had been buried.  Mina, too, begins to exhibit strange behavior, and Dr. Seward and Professor Van Helsing implement measures to prevent her from falling further into Count Dracula’s grasp.  When the vampire again arrives, he has a showdown with Professor Van Helsing with the vampire’s nemesis uttering one of the greatest lines in cinematic history for this Catholic.  Count Dracula presumes that Professor Van Helsing has wolfsbane to keep the blood sucker in check.  Professor Van Helsing says he has something better and produces a Crucifix.  I audibly cheered in that moment.  Anyway, the last proof of Mina’s ongoing transformation comes when she, too, has an adverse reaction to the image of Jesus on the Cross.  This finally convinces John that something needs to be done.  He and Professor Van Helsing are spurred into more immediate action when Count Dracula manages to bewitch one of the nurses and gain access to Mina’s room.  He takes her back to Carfax Abbey, but are followed by the zealous Renfield.  This is lucky for John and Professor Van Helsing as it leads them to Count Dracula’s lair.  Renfield pays for his unwitting betrayal with his life, after which Count Dracula takes Mina into the basement where his coffin lies.  I guess it is close to morning as he lays down in it and seems to go to sleep.  This is convenient for Professor Van Helsing as he is easily able to drive a stake through Count Dracula’s heart.  This apparently lifts whatever spell had a hold on Mina.  There is a rather abrupt end, with John and Mina walking away together while Professor Van Helsing says there is one more thing he must do.  What that is we never see.

Dracula is campy, but I will take it over any other vampire movie.  You do not need to see the fangs come out, the gush of blood, or any other terrible act featured in other films dealing with the same subject matter to know what is happening.  In short, I appreciate the discretion of the older film.  Still, what I liked best is the moment I mentioned in the last paragraph pertaining to Professor Van Helsing’s proclaiming the power of the Crucifix.  While some lesser-known vampire flicks have this as a key weakness of these creatures of the night, two of the major ones ignore it.  I am thinking specifically of Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994).  In the latter of these, Louis de Pointe du Lac (Brad Pitt) specifically says that he is fond of Crosses.  He makes this remark as a way of dispelling to his interviewer, Daniel Molloy (Christian Slater), some supposed myths about vampires.  Once could take this as a way of saying that blood suckers, too, are children of God and thus redeemable.  First, let me be clear that vampires do not exist.  Further, they were created as a way of showing the awful price a person pays when they turn their back on God.  In Bram Stoker’s original book that launched all this nonsense, this was how Dracula was created.  Those inclined to argue with this logic might emphasize the fact that they are immortal.  There is a path to immortality, and it is achieved when you get to Heaven, not by eating people.  It is in this last point that Dracula stands out.  One of the concerns of those dealing with the threat posed by Count Dracula is the danger to their souls, that part of us meant for eternity with God.  Again, this is something the others do not seem to concern themselves with, and that is a shame.

Besides being significantly more tame, I enjoyed the fact that Dracula is a piece of classic cinema.  I hope I am not alone in liking old movies.  As previously mentioned, you do not need all the filth that modern films fling at you to understand when a person is in peril.  The limitations of the older film make it better.