I am a giant fan of Lugosi. Of course, most classic horror geeks are, so that's not really something new, but far beyond the usual Lugosi classics like Dracula and WHITE ZOMBIE, I even enjoy most of his Poverty Row cheapies like THE CORPSE VANISHES that typically don't garner as much respect. Somehow, though, this movie had always escaped my attention, mostly because it has such a mixed bag reputation. Finally, though, I got my chance to view this movie and pretty much ended up understanding why it was one of the last Lugosi movies I checked off the list.
It's pretty much a sequel to Dracula in disguise. Obviously, Columbia didn't have the proper rights to do a direct sequel to the Universal classic, so they changed the vampire's name and went ahead with the plot idea anyways. It's essentially a retread of a huge part of Dracula's plot, but the least interesting part. To me, I love the beginning of Dracula, the scenes in his castle and with Renfield, the ship voyage to England, these are the best moments. Once we get to the love story and his attempts to hypnotize Mina into loving him I lose some interest. That's the part that they imitate here.
We start in WWI with Drac...sorry, Armand Tesla up to his old ways. A couple scientists are trying to understand what's happening to the victims and stumble on the vampire and his werewolf assistant. After thinking they've put an end to the evil, Tesla returns during the next World War after his grave is opened in a bombing and attempts to steal our heroine to be his eternal bride.
Bela is really the only thing good about this movie. As usual, he puts his absolute best into the role and pulls off another great vampire character. The rest of the cast and crew are just on auto pilot, though. The writing is lazy and boring. They retread plot points from a dozen prior horror films and jumble them together to create a movie that feels like you've been there and done that even if you've never seen the movie. The secondary "human" characters are all just cardboard cutouts of your basic horror archetypes: the pretty victim, the worrying boyfriend, the skeptical cop, the comedy relief bumblers in the graveyard. It's all so paint by numbers.
Don't even get me started on the werewolf. I would consider myself to be somewhat of a werewolf aficionado and go to great lengths to find new werewolf movies. This one is bad. It's more akin to TEEN WOLF or I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF. There is almost nothing threatening about the monster, at all, who looks like a terrier and cowers in fear of his master through most of the movie. A shame because the actor does a decent job with his "human parts". The only thing that does stick out is the strong female lead as we get a woman scientist trying to solve this supernatural mystery.
If you're in a midnight movie mood and looking for an old horror film that you haven't seen before, this is worth a glance, but it's really just moderately better than most of the stuff on those 100 greatest horror films DVD boxes.
It's pretty much a sequel to Dracula in disguise. Obviously, Columbia didn't have the proper rights to do a direct sequel to the Universal classic, so they changed the vampire's name and went ahead with the plot idea anyways. It's essentially a retread of a huge part of Dracula's plot, but the least interesting part. To me, I love the beginning of Dracula, the scenes in his castle and with Renfield, the ship voyage to England, these are the best moments. Once we get to the love story and his attempts to hypnotize Mina into loving him I lose some interest. That's the part that they imitate here.
We start in WWI with Drac...sorry, Armand Tesla up to his old ways. A couple scientists are trying to understand what's happening to the victims and stumble on the vampire and his werewolf assistant. After thinking they've put an end to the evil, Tesla returns during the next World War after his grave is opened in a bombing and attempts to steal our heroine to be his eternal bride.
Bela is really the only thing good about this movie. As usual, he puts his absolute best into the role and pulls off another great vampire character. The rest of the cast and crew are just on auto pilot, though. The writing is lazy and boring. They retread plot points from a dozen prior horror films and jumble them together to create a movie that feels like you've been there and done that even if you've never seen the movie. The secondary "human" characters are all just cardboard cutouts of your basic horror archetypes: the pretty victim, the worrying boyfriend, the skeptical cop, the comedy relief bumblers in the graveyard. It's all so paint by numbers.
Don't even get me started on the werewolf. I would consider myself to be somewhat of a werewolf aficionado and go to great lengths to find new werewolf movies. This one is bad. It's more akin to TEEN WOLF or I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF. There is almost nothing threatening about the monster, at all, who looks like a terrier and cowers in fear of his master through most of the movie. A shame because the actor does a decent job with his "human parts". The only thing that does stick out is the strong female lead as we get a woman scientist trying to solve this supernatural mystery.
If you're in a midnight movie mood and looking for an old horror film that you haven't seen before, this is worth a glance, but it's really just moderately better than most of the stuff on those 100 greatest horror films DVD boxes.