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I feel like, for the time being, we’ve hit a saturation point in popular culture with vampires. True Blood is one of HBO’s most successful shows, Twilight continues to be popular (even though the characters aren’t really vampires, but that’s a rant for another day), The Vampire Diaries is a huge hit for the CW, and on and on and on. Now, we’ve had waves of popularity for vampires in the media; was it less than 15 years ago that Buffy the Vampire Slayer premiered on TV? But I’m mostly tired of them now, because what else can you do with a story about a vampire? There have been retreads, remakes, the genre has been subverted, and it’s been parodied. What else is left? Sometimes, the only thing you can do is go back to where, in America, it all began.

I’m talking, of course, about Dracula. Yes, your beloved writer (I am beloved, right?) has never, ever seen the 1931 horror film Dracula. Though it’s not the first Dracula film - the 1923 silent film Nosferatu is deservedly well regarded - it features just about every familiar point in its tight, 75-minute running time from the book of vampire clichés. Man turning into bat? Check. Man with dark black hair and cape? Check. Fangs sucking blood? Check. Vampires without reflections? Check. Unable to go into the sun? Check. You get the idea. Coming to the film nearly 80 years after its release, I can’t tell you that I loved Dracula - there are many flaws, a good portion of which can’t be considered part and parcel of watching a movie from 1931 - but it’s a fascinating film that every fan of horror films should watch.

The star of the film, and a man who would be forever typecast as the title character, is Bela Lugosi. Lugosi’s features are striking, so striking that the film’s director, Tod Browning, uses as a crutch any time he can show a close-up of Lugosi’s piercing gaze, his enigmatic smile, and pale face. The first few times the shot appears, no matter what the setting, the effect is surprisingly notable. Considering that Browning tends to use this shot a good 20 times in the first 30 minutes, though, any effect gets dulled. What amazed me is that Lugosi’s theatrical performance (no surprise, as the cinematic adaptation was based on a famous play starring Lugosi and a few other cast members) goes from being compelling to cheesy to laughable to compelling, almost at the exact same time.

The plot’s old hat, by now, but it’s still interesting to consider in terms of the script. The biggest issue I have with the story (which is so common that it feels older than the source material by Bram Stoker) is that there’s not really a hero. In the Francis Ford Coppola version, it’s said that he had Keanu Reeves play the young male love interest for the heroine because the audience would be repelled by his wooden performance and root for Dracula. Even in this version, there’s not really a good guy to root for. Sure, Abraham Van Helsing, the Dutch doctor who’s easily the smartest human in the film, has noble interests at heart but the character (at least as played here) is bland. Of course, if we’re being honest, the most interesting and compelling character in Dracula is also the grossest: Renfield.

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