I always thought all the Hollywood Dracula movie plots were the same (reminder: I’ve never seen any of them). Count Dracula is a vampire who lures people into his castle and either kills them or controls them. I figured this would be that and I was in for 90 minutes of screaming.

This plot is a little different. Yes, Dracula (Bela Lugosi) carries on with the trope that annoying people should be eaten, and sexy people should become vampires. It’s only right, that in the middle of the Great Depression, Americans need to be mindful of this distinction. A real estate agent, Renfield, goes to Dracula’s castle unknowingly on one of the scariest days of the year to Eastern Europeans: Walpurgis Night. Which is basically “May Day Eve” and people pray to the patron saint of pests, rabies, and against witchcraft. I’d never heard of this before, but anything that involves both wildlife mitigation and bonfires is all right in my book.

Anyways, back to Renfield, who is either an idiot or the most naive real estate agent ever invented. I’ll give Dracula this, he’s got manners. He offers food and lodging to Renfield. He has ALL his papers and luggage ready to go. Very organized, even in a castle overrun by armadillos and vampire wives. Renfield is, of course, now under Dracula’s control and the two travel off to England together on their gay cruise (open bar on all necks–er, I mean decks).

The ship arrives in London with everyone on board dead except for Renfield and his boxes of dirt. Renfield is taken to a mental institution and Dracula checks into his LairBnB at Carfax Abbey. Which happens to be right next door to sanatorium where Renfield is being held and where the head doctor and his family live. Dracula is playing chess or really good at having a plan come together.

Dracula terrorizes the doctor’s daughter Mina. Her boyfriend, John Harker is absolutely useless and just goes around saying obvious things, like “watch out for your hair, Mina.” The only person trying to help the situation is a professor from Germany, Van Helsing. He has a special “weed” to repel the threat and carries a cross with him everywhere. In the end, Van Helsing is the hero and Harker gets his girl back in a dramatic exit from Carfax. Van Helsing requests to stay behind. I’m sure it is for research purposes, but we all know he’s going to do some messed up shit with Dracula’s body.

It was fun to watch another “godfather of horror” movie. You can trace all the themes that are set in place back through the decades. As a side note, Renfield’s maniacal laughter should be on every Halloween sounds album. That sound is so creepy, I wanted to fast forward it. This is probably all cliches to horror film buffs, but I’m not quite there yet. Maybe by next Walpurgis Night.