Thursday, June 21, 2012

The Return Of Dracula (1958)




Genre: Vampire

Source: Netflix Instant

Grade: B



Before I start i`d like to apologize for my SUPER long hiatus that I put my blog on because of stupid school which consumed all my time and energy for the past few months. Now though its thankfully all over and I get back into the routine of updating my blog. Anyways whats a better way of making a comeback then by posting a review of an obscure Dracula movie?

      To be honest this movies been sitting on my Netflix instant Que for well over a year now, for some reason I just haven't motivated myself until now to watch it. To be straight forward this movies small but it holds up surprisingly well and to me its a quite underrated horror movie.
        Despite this movie having no one that I had any attachment to or familiarity with I am impressed with its assembled cast and crew. For one the cast was very well put together except for the annoying little kid who left his small cat in a freaking mine shaft; he got on my nerves. Other then that the rest of the cast was fine, especially Francis Lederer who plays Dracula. He brought this great like slimy and unromantic version of Dracula into this movie, sure he`s no Bela Lugosi or Christopher Lee but his unique approach to the character helps elevate this movie above the "just another Dracula movie" subcategory.

         One thing I liked about the story was it was not a adaption of the novel Dracula. Instead it was like a squeal type story to the novel. Which is sorta of a relief because there is in no way a shortage Dracula novel adaptations. Anyways if your wondering what the movie`s synopsis is its basically about a man whose killed in Transylvania by Dracula, who then takes the recently killed mans identity and uses to get into get into America and wreck havoc in a small town there. The movie`s climax was OK, like the way Dracula dies was cool, but the way the two people get him to die was a little disappointing, I hope that makes sense.

          Overall I must say this movie was much better than I thought it would be, It is quite a underrated Horror movie and I think deserves some extra attention. Now I found out that not long after this movie was made the Hammer classic Horror Of Dracula was released which is what pretty much caused Return Of Dracula to be even more completely forgotten. Which makes sense because I can see why people would be more interested to see the colorful and vibrant Dracula movie as opposed to this more simple and black and white Dracula movie. But if you are at all curious to check it out, a fan of Dracula movies, or a person who likes obscure horror movies then i`d recommend giving Return of Dracula a try.