Movies
Dracula
“It was not until I watched the movie recently that I realized just what made this movie a great film instead of just a “classic” film.”
One of my favorite films of all time, plus the film that influenced my love of horror movies the most, is Tod Browning’s Dracula. However, it was not until I watched the movie recently that I realized just what made this movie a great film instead of just a “classic” film.
Dracula was not the first adaptation of Bram Stoker’s classic novel of love and the undead. F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu was an unlicensed adaptation of the text. However, it is Lugosi’s portrayal of the vampire that clearly stands out for me. Before the movie was made, Lugosi portrayed Count Dracula on stage. This is clearly evident with his slow, methodical movements and drawn out dialogue that makes Dracula such a creepy, and even seductive, character. Browning made exceptional use of Lugosi’s stage presence with close up shots of the actor as he hypnotized his prey.
By no means is this story a complex one. Count Dracula, with the help of a newly enslaved victim named Renfield, sets sail to England where he stalks Mina Seward, the daughter of Doctor Jack Seward, the head of a nearby insane asylum. Seward, with the aid of Professor Abraham Van Helsing, begins to see the mysterious count as a menace. However, it is the good professor who sees Dracula as a creature of the night.
Mina’s betrothed, John Harker, sees Dracula as a threat to his relationship first, and a threat to Mina’s life second. He is the perfect character to drive home the moral undertones that this storyline evokes. Harker and Van Helsing risk life and limb to do battle with the undead to save Mina’s life…and her very soul.
Dracula is a great film with excellent pacing. The character of Count Dracula has been portrayed by many, but it is Lugosi’s interpretation that is the longest lasting. His slow stalking of his prey before he goes in for the kill creates suspense. His very mannerisms (for example the scene where he raises his arms and curls his finger allows the cape to drape over his elbows, creating a bat-like outline is a subtle, but highly effective theatrical ploy. It is this performance that has captivated the hearts of filmmakers looking to evoke the horror of the original novel.
Two things that have proven to be pretty dependable at the box office in recent years are horror movies and Christopher Nolan movies. With Nolan’s The Odyssey absolutely dominating the box office this past weekend, many fans of Nolan’s work have been left hungry for a Nolan-directed horror movie. After all, The Odyssey does whet the appetite for Nolan nightmare fuel.
Christopher Nolan has brushed up against the horror genre in the past with 2002 thriller Insomnia, but does he have any interest in someday making a full-on horror movie?
Nolan tells the Empire Podcast in a new chat, “I’ve always been interested in doing a horror film.”
“But horror is most successful when the conceptual framework of whatever the story is is just so undeniable. I think there are very few really great horror movies,” Nolan continues.
So why hasn’t Christopher Nolan directed a horror movie yet?
He explains to Empire, “I’ve never clicked with a particular idea or concept that worked for me. I love the genre. Of all genres, it’s the most visceral. Where the direct response to the audience is the most important. That is to say, you’re trying to make people literally feel something in their bones about what’s going on on-screen.”
Nolan calls horror “a genre in which experimentation is demanded.” He explains, “I go to see a lot of horror films with my kids these days, and you’ll see things in the first half an hour, 45 minutes of any horror film that you’d never see in another genre. Risks that are taken. Dangerous approaches to things. Admittedly, a lot of movies can’t sustain that to the end. But in the horror genre, that kind of innovation is not just respected – it’s really demanded.”
Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is now playing in theaters.
Cillian Murphy as Scarecrow in Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Dark Knight’ (2008)
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