SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

XoWizIama Excellent adaptation.

Sexyloutak Absolutely the worst movie.

Bea Swanson This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

JohnHowardReid It's good to see this entry in Columbia's horror catalog has now surfaced on an excellent Columbia DVD. Admittedly, I didn't expect a great deal of a movie directed by Lew Landers, but this one is very professionally handled by Mr. Landers, assisted by moody photography (including some great special effects work), atmospheric sets, and an intriguing script which doesn't mind breaking some of the rules laid down by Universal's horror specialists. As expected, Bela Lugosi plays the vampire as to the manner born and receives excellent assistance from a first-rate support cast including Nina Foch and Frieda Inescort. (Incidentally, "Foch" is pronounced "Fawsh", and it rhymes with Porsche, the luxury motor car).

TheRedDeath30 I am a giant fan of Lugosi. Of course, most classic horror geeks are, so that's not really something new, but far beyond the usual Lugosi classics like Dracula and WHITE ZOMBIE, I even enjoy most of his Poverty Row cheapies like THE CORPSE VANISHES that typically don't garner as much respect. Somehow, though, this movie had always escaped my attention, mostly because it has such a mixed bag reputation. Finally, though, I got my chance to view this movie and pretty much ended up understanding why it was one of the last Lugosi movies I checked off the list.It's pretty much a sequel to Dracula in disguise. Obviously, Columbia didn't have the proper rights to do a direct sequel to the Universal classic, so they changed the vampire's name and went ahead with the plot idea anyways. It's essentially a retread of a huge part of Dracula's plot, but the least interesting part. To me, I love the beginning of Dracula, the scenes in his castle and with Renfield, the ship voyage to England, these are the best moments. Once we get to the love story and his attempts to hypnotize Mina into loving him I lose some interest. That's the part that they imitate here.We start in WWI with Drac...sorry, Armand Tesla up to his old ways. A couple scientists are trying to understand what's happening to the victims and stumble on the vampire and his werewolf assistant. After thinking they've put an end to the evil, Tesla returns during the next World War after his grave is opened in a bombing and attempts to steal our heroine to be his eternal bride.Bela is really the only thing good about this movie. As usual, he puts his absolute best into the role and pulls off another great vampire character. The rest of the cast and crew are just on auto pilot, though. The writing is lazy and boring. They retread plot points from a dozen prior horror films and jumble them together to create a movie that feels like you've been there and done that even if you've never seen the movie. The secondary "human" characters are all just cardboard cutouts of your basic horror archetypes: the pretty victim, the worrying boyfriend, the skeptical cop, the comedy relief bumblers in the graveyard. It's all so paint by numbers.Don't even get me started on the werewolf. I would consider myself to be somewhat of a werewolf aficionado and go to great lengths to find new werewolf movies. This one is bad. It's more akin to TEEN WOLF or I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF. There is almost nothing threatening about the monster, at all, who looks like a terrier and cowers in fear of his master through most of the movie. A shame because the actor does a decent job with his "human parts". The only thing that does stick out is the strong female lead as we get a woman scientist trying to solve this supernatural mystery.If you're in a midnight movie mood and looking for an old horror film that you haven't seen before, this is worth a glance, but it's really just moderately better than most of the stuff on those 100 greatest horror films DVD boxes.

Ben Larson Do not look upon this film as a horror movie, but as a history lesson.In it you will see the great Bela Lugosi as Dracula. Yes, I know he is not called Dracula, but that is because of a dispute between movie studios. They changed his name to Dr. Tesla to avoid a lawsuit.They also delayed release for two months so as to not compete with another Dracula movie.This is from the golden age of horror, and it has not only a vampire, but a wolf-man, too. Seldom will you see the two in the same film. It is funny that the wolf-man becomes Dracula's servant.The film takes place during the bombing of London during WWII. It is a bomb that opens Dracula's coffin.Here you see the power of the greatest Dracula of all time: "I shall command, and you shall obey,"

dbborroughs Armand Tesla is a centuries old vampire prowling London during the First World War. His evil is discovered by a rich scientific family who embark to put a stop to his evil. years later his corpse is turned up during the bombing of the Blitz and the spike keeping him dead is removed before he can be reburied. Awakened, Tesla vows to get revenge on the family that had "killed him" years before.Bela Lugosi once more takes on the cape of a vampire in a Columbia programmer. Its an amusing little film that has some crackling dialog that really raises the level of the proceedings(I think the exchange between Tesla and the families matriarch in the last part of the film is great). I like the battle between science and reason with the supernatural which also keeps the proceedings feeling modern.Unfortunately the film wobbles a bit and isn't as good as it should have been. Much of the misty sets that Lugosi wanders were hackneyed when the film was made. I also dislike Lugosi being made up to be essentially Dracula. Yes it was his bread and butter, but at the same time it takes away from the bits of the movie that are trying to be more than your typical fright film.Worth a look, but you'll probably feel it should have been better than it is.