Ian West’s review published on Letterboxd:
Lofty timbers, the walls around are bare, echoing to our laughter... as though the dead were there.
This 89 year old adaptation of an 123 year old story has had just about everything said about it, so I’ll try to spare you all those details... but I will say this... Dracula means so much to me in so many different ways that it’s actually hard to pick the proper emotive words. I used to sit at the end of our family couch as a 5 year old, wearing a cape, with my very Eddie Munster looking ass about 2 inches away from the screen as I’d watch this movie (and other Univrsal monster jams) over and over again... pretty sure that’s how I got mixed up in all the spooky stuff.
This was my first ‘favorite movie’ and the first movie that I memorized every line of dialogue. Each moment of this feels like an operatic display of perfectly cobwebbed macabre atmos designed specifically for me—opening with those forever startling notes before the infamous swan lake melody takes over and sends me on some sort of early talkie gothic waltz. I still go nutso for dem Lugosi eyes, the lavish crumbling cobwebbed sets, and that Dwight Frye laugh. I know lotsa folks here on litterboxd think this is dated or slowly paced, but personally I love slow, drawn out, dusty mood pieces and regardless of criticism, this is a genre monolith that kicked off a Mount Rushmore worthy run of absolutely essential monster movie offerings... as well as, in mind, one of the greatest performances the universal monsters would ever know courtesy of Bela—who elevates this entire picture and transcends the vampire lore itself by ‘creating’ most of the traits still associated with them today.
I grew up idolizing Bela Lugosi—I loved him in The Black Cat and The Raven, I was creeped out by him in Murders in the Rue Morgue, and his final turn in Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein where he goes out in a blaze of glory fighting the Wolf Man is still one of my all timer movie moments. Hell, my grandmother’s seamstress best friend even made me an insane replica cape that I’d wear around everywhere as a kid. So many kids I knew wanted to be an astronaut or a jabroni cop, but I wanted to be a vampire, and to this day I still think about Bela Lugosi quite a bit. There was even a time period where I was super petty and hated on Karloff because Frankenstein’s Monster was upticking in popularity (and he’s my least favorite Universal Monster) and everyone would skip over my beloved Bela... but then Ed Wood happened and changed everything. I’ve since made my peace with the Uncanny Karloff... but I will say this—Bela Lugosi (and to a lesser extent, Dwight Frye) has always captivated me in a way that Boris Karloff never could.
I’ve come to the conclusion that my love for movies actually stems from this movie, and after careful consideration I’m smashing that 5 star button on this since I’d even be willing to bet that I wouldn’t be writing on this site if it wasn’t for this 89 year old dusty slice of cobwebbed macabre.
The Blood is the Life.