Editorials
Language Is No Barrier: The Spanish Version of ‘Dracula’ Remains a Lesser-Known Universal Monsters Classic
“Listen to them. The Children of the night. What music they make.”
It’s a line embedded into pop culture and horror history. In no small part due to the lasting overall impact of Tod Browning and Bela Lugosi’s iconic adaptation of Dracula, which recently celebrated its 90th anniversary. While most of us know this particular version like the back of our hand, did you know there’s another version that also celebrates its 90th birthday this month?
By the 1920s, American film studios began to see the profitability of selling their films to international markets. While silent films could be translated to foreign markets with relative ease, the rise of the sound film era by the late 1920s proved to be far more difficult. This was long before the days of overdubbing and major audio modifications that we have in filmmaking today. As a solution, studios came up with what at the time seemed like an ingenious solution: to film an entirely separate version specifically made to be sold to international markets. The most famous of these films you ask? Dracula, directed by George Melford for Spanish-speaking markets.
Universal, in a cost saving initiative, used the same sets that Browning used on his own film. Tod Browning would direct his scenes in the daytime and in the evening Melford and company would show up and shoot their version. Essentially Universal was making the exact same movie twice for multiple markets, which in retrospect seems like a nightmare. But without the common availability and invention of dubbing, there was no other way around it.
For Melford’s Dracula, the role of the infamous vampire was given to Carlos Villarias. A native actor from Spain, Villarias brings a different energy to the role. Whereas Lugosi’s portrayal brings a sense of nuance to the blood-drinking villain, Villarias’ Count is at times a bit more unhinged. A choice that works in its own right for this unexpected adaptation. The role of Mina was reworked into Eva for the Spanish version and portrayed by the wonderful Lupita Tovar, who is Mexican Cinema royalty. Not only was she in this version of Dracula, but she was also in the film Santa, which was the first fully sound Mexican film production.
Melford was allowed dallies to the Browning production and during the day spent time studying them. Keen on making his film stand out, the Spanish-language version contains more elaborate cinematography and effects. There are less tracking shots, but overall the film is framed like a stage play (ironic, since its source material is the 1924 Broadway play rather than the novel). It’s almost like witnessing the film for the first time if you’re a fan of the more popular and accessible Browning adaptation.
Dracula premiered on March 11, 1931 in Havana, Cuba followed by a premiere in New York City on April 24 later that year. Reception at the time was insubstantial and the film was quickly forgotten to time. Or so we thought. Like the infamous Count himself, the Spanish-language version of Dracula resurfaced in 1977 where it was partially screened at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. This inspired Universal to eventually release the completed film to home media in the early 90s where it found a new appreciation for its differences to its English counterpart. Since then it has been included as a special feature to Lugosi’s film and is widely accessible today.
Time for me to get a little personal for a moment. In the late 90s the Spanish-language version of Dracula was a way for me to bond with my late grandfather. A native from Mexico, his first language was Spanish and he struggled to understand and follow English-speaking media in his older age. Not being a fluent Spanish speaker myself, I would try to seek out subtitled movies for us to watch. One of these being Dracula. We would watch it together and he would love it; the experience was instrumental in my blossoming love for the horror genre as a whole as a kid. He’s gone now, but Dracula will always remind me of the time and experience I got to spend with him, loving horror movies together.
Though the Spanish-language version of Dracula hasn’t reached the pop culture heights of the Browning/Lugosi adaptation, it stands in its own right as a unique adaptation of the same source material. It also represents a paradigm shift that Hollywood and filmmaking as a whole were facing at the time. It exists in this strange place where we were moving from the past and into what the future of the format would be. With this version being widely accessible as a special feature of the English version, now is a good time as any to celebrate this lesser known Universal Monsters classic from the golden age of monster films.
It’s been 75 years since The Thing From Another World first warned us to “watch the skies”, and filmgoers have done just that by showing up to multiple instances of extraterrestrial contact on the big screen. This makes sense, as a recent CBS news poll estimated that 63% of Americans believe in intelligent life on other planets, and the ongoing disclosure movement aims to raise that number with each passing day.
With Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day leaving many genre fans hungry for more alien footage (preferably of the spooky variety), today I’d like to share a list recommending six underrated alien invasion thrillers for your viewing pleasure. After all, regardless of whether or not you believe that we’re alone in the universe, it can be fun to dream about the worst-case scenario if our cosmic neighbors ever decide to visit.
For the purposes of this list, we’ll be focusing on lesser-known invasion stories rather than the popular extraterrestrials of franchises like Alien and Close Encounters of the Third (or even Fourth) Kind. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own alien favorites if you think we missed a particularly thrilling movie.
While it won’t be featured in this article, I’d highly recommend checking out Dean Alioto’s UFO Abduction/The McPherson Tape if you’re up for some ufology-inspired found footage thrills.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
6. The Arrival (1996)
Not to be confused with Denis Villeneuve’s Academy Award-winning Amy Adams vehicle about learning to communicate peacefully with extraterrestrial life, David Twohy’s The Arrival is a much more straightforward (but no less entertaining) genre romp where Charlie Sheen faces a global conspiracy involving hostile alien invaders.
It’s not exactly up there with Close Encounters or even Independence Day, but Twohy’s conspiratorial thriller plays out like an exceptionally fun episode of The X-Files that I’d recommend to sci-fi/horror fans who don’t mind a little bit of wonky CGI and 90s excess alongside their alien thrills.
5. Extraterrestrial (2014)
The Vicious Brothers made a name for themselves with the success of 2011’s Grave Encounters, but that was far from the Canadian duo’s only collaboration. And while it’s not exactly a fan favorite, I always point out 2014’s Extraterrestrial as one of their most underrated projects simply because I agree with the filmmakers’ opinion that there aren’t enough ‘cool alien abduction movies’ out there.
Admittedly, the majority of the picture functions like a run-of-the-mill creature feature with paper-thin characters and familiar horror tropes, but I’d argue that the cosmically-terrifying final act elevates the experience to new and memorable heights. The movie also boasts great performances by both Michael Ironside and Emily Perkins – a combination that more than makes up for the occasionally janky CGI.
4. Alien Raiders (2008)
Director Ben Rock has gone on record lamenting how his John-Carpenter-inspired creature feature was forcefully renamed from Supermarket to the painfully obvious Alien Raiders (a change which likely resulted in many potential viewers skipping out on the experience), but the new title doesn’t change the fact that this single-location thriller is something of a hidden gem.
Taking place entirely within a supermarket, Alien Raiders tells the story of an ensemble of customers and employees who are taken hostage by a group of armed men looking for something far more dangerous than an easy payout. I won’t get into details in order to avoid spoiling the experience, but I’d highly recommend this criminally underseen flick to fans of John Carpenter and the Resident Evil games.
3. Phoenix Forgotten (2017)
You’d think that a Ridley-Scott-produced retelling of one of the most infamous real-life UFO sightings of all time would have a bigger following, but I rarely see Justin Barber’s Found Footage period piece brought up during discussions about extraterrestrial-focused horror movies.
This is a huge shame, as Phoenix Forgotten is just as spooky as it is convincing, with this well-researched dive into the Phoenix Lights incident benefiting from surprisingly believable special effects as well as an appropriately horrific finale.
2. Communion (1989)
I wouldn’t blame you for disregarding Whitley Strieber’s controversial book about his alleged close encounter as sensationalist slop, but I’d argue that Phillipe Mora’s 1989 adaptation of these events is much better than the source material. After all, the movie works as a standalone piece of speculative fiction while also benefiting from an incredible performance by the one and only Christopher Walken!
Mora’s take on Communion may not be particularly scary, but the film is still an unforgettable character study regardless of whether or not the abduction really happened. Not only that, but the flick also paved the way for plenty of future sci-fi stories where the extraterrestrial invaders aren’t as evil as they initially appear.
1. Altered (2006)
Originally envisioned as a Sam Raimi-style horror-comedy titled Probed, Eduardo Sánchez (of The Blair Witch Project fame) eventually realized that it would be much more interesting to turn the film into a serious exploration of the emotional aftermath of a traumatic abduction incident.
That’s how we got Altered, a clever inversion of the standard abduction narrative that follows a group of troubled friends as they capture and experiment on an alien in order to enact revenge for their own abduction years prior.
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