Classic Film Reviews

It’s impossible to watch Dracula for the first time and not draw breath. It doesn’t happen when the fangs snap or the blood spurt (there’s less of that than you might expect). It’s at the first sight of Tod Browning’s gothic chamber piece, less a horror film than a mood (velvet shadows and hushed menace) and most of all Bela Lugosi gliding through the fog, like sin in a tuxedo. Lugosi’s is the great seductive performance in horror cinema. He hypnotizes with his silken accent and deadpan stare. His icy menace veers into seduction. He is the movie vampire as we know it. Helen Chandler’s otherworldly Mina is pale and delicate and wafts through Freund’s chiaroscuro lighting like a shade, not yet certain that she’s already been possessed. (Spoiler: she has.) Yes, the film creaks. Its staginess is obvious, its pace embalmed. But that’s its uncanny charm. Lugosi’s Count is the last vestige of pre-code decadence, and the undead aristocrat is far scarier for moving in slow motion. It’s not a question of better technology. In a world of CGI sporks who hiss and sparkle like a videogame villain, Lugosi waits. He watches. He has all the time in the world. Nearly 100 years later, he still does.