From his home in Transylvania, Count Dracula arrives in England bringing with him death and tragedy. With his loyal and clinically insane servant Renfield in tow, he sets up shop in Carfax Abbey (conveniently located within spitting distance of Dr. Seward’s Sanitarium where looney Renfield is admitted as an inside man) and gets his suck on. He sets his sights on Seward’s daughter, Mina, slowly bending her to his will and this proves to be his downfall. Nina’s boring-ass beau teams up with the vampire expert Van Helsing, the convinced Dr. Seward and the sometimes sympathetic sometimes loyal bug-eating Renfield to take down the blood sucking monster. There’s a pleasant unsettling mood throughout and some genuinely chilling images to go along with the iconic performances from Bela Lugosi as the Count and Dwight Frye as Renfield but the whole affair is a bit musty. Tod Browning’s direction has a certain theatrical level to it which shows in the performances and comes off as static. It’s like a tenured professor that refuses to retire, you recognize the importance but it’s hard not to notice just how stuffy things are.
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