Dracula (1958)

Well I may not get to do much personally for Halloween this year, but at least when I was last hanging with Blaine, he decided it was high time I take a look at what Christopher is best known for aside from being Count Dooku in the Star Wars prequels, Saruman in The Lord of the Rings, and various stuff from Tim Burton: Dracula. And how did this film itself turn out? Let's find out.

Plot: Johnathan Harker comes to the castle of Count Dracula to become the castle librarian. But secretly, he really is a vampire hunter, attempting to destroy Dracula. He succeeds in impaling the vampire women that Dracula had trapped, but in doing so awakes the count, sealing his doom. So it's up to his friend, Dr. Van Helsing to investigate what happened to his friend and attempt to succeed where Harker did not in destroying Count Dracula.

I honestly am not entirely sure what to especially say about this movie than what is more or less already said. Dracula delivers exactly what you would expect with giving us the story of Dracula with Christopher Lee performing as him, which he does a great job at. He's stern, calm and polite at first, but once its night time, he will be a vicious blood sucking killer...with barely any of the blood. In fact, I think RottenTomatoes says it best in the beginning of their consensus for the film as trading the gore for the grandeur. This is a well slow placed film that has a splendid style to it from the setting, to the events of the film themselves. And it has a very memorable cast. I thought the real interesting focus of this film for me was going to see a young Christopher Lee of all things, but no, I got much more than that; namely an also young Peter Cushing and Michael Gough (Grand Morf Tarkin from Star Wars: A New Hope and Alfred in the original Batman films) as Van Helsing and Arthur. If you consider how both actors look in the films I just listed to how they look in this particular film, You would probably be a little surprised at how young they are too. And when the film is suspenseful, it kept me interested and wanting to know if the protagonists where going to live. Now was it a really scary movie for me? Of coarse not. I mean let's be fair, this was made in 1958, and it's on a concept I know well about as much as the next guy. So naturally, I would not this this a scary as people would back then. But even with that said, I can see why people would be scared, because it is a thrilling movie that times its really dark moments with Lee very well.

And that's my review for Dracula. I honestly feel like I didn't say that much about this film, but at the same time I also feel like I don't really need to. It is simply a well acted movie with a great cast and a well slow paced story of Count Dracula with Christopher Lee as Dracula himself. I honestly think those elements are enough for the film to continue being memorable and classic considering the monster genre. So if you haven't seen this movie yet, definitely give it a shot. 

Rating: 100%