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Dracula Movie Review

Dracula is a 1958 horror film directed by Terence Fisher and starring Christopher Lee and Peter Crushing. It’s one of the best adaptations of the eponymous novel.

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“Sleep well, Mr. Harker“

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After killing Jonathan Harker, a vampire attacks his fiancée’s family. However, situations take a turn when Dr. Van Helsing, Harker’s friend, learns of the truth and decides to destroy the predator. Hammer is one of the most iconic horror production studios and this is one of their most renowned features. This movie is where everything clicked together to create a timeless genre piece.

Rare are movies that actually adapt the original Bram Stoker novel, so this 1958 adaptation deserves extra praise for being so faithful to the source material. The book is so fantastic and so engaging that it doesn’t need to be changed significantly for the big screen, which this production crew understood well. The end result is an adaptation that only forsake a couple of plot points from the original, including Dracula’s animal forms and the ship voyage.

Christopher Lee is a terrific Dracula. The fangs looked great on him, he acted out those biting scenes with a lot of conviction and the overall look on him was excellent with the cape being super cool. Lee is Dracula at not only sophisticated, but also genuinely menacing and competent. I just wished that he appeared more often in the film as there were significant chunks of screen time where he was entirely absent from the story.

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Peter Cushing is an even better Van Helsing. I loved his performance here. Cushing was not only charismatic and highly successful as a vampire hunter, but he was also empathetic and very human. He was so good here that the rest of the performers and characters were nowhere near as interesting. Harker himself got a very strong first act, but the others were forgettable, though the performances were solid overall. Melissa Stribling as Mina was the most memorable and the psychosexual tension present here was admirably modern for the time.

This Dracula has a rather slow second act, which is the only detriment stemming from adapting this older book. But the first act is genuinely suspenseful and artistic while the third act is truly sensational. The ending is so amazing that it transcended those flaws from the second act effortlessly. The confrontation between Dracula and Van Helsing was thrilling and grounded while the final sequence was just perfect – Dracula decomposing and Helsing showing not just strength, but also empathy produced an immaculate scene.

The special effects work in that sequence was just fantastic for the time and it still looks great to this day. The movie is polished throughout with particularly gorgeous costumes, impressive production design and lovely cinematography. The score is suitably suspenseful while the directing from Terence Fisher is quite professional. The editing and pacing are slightly problematic, but the movie mostly flowed well. This is a sumptuous, colorful picture that oozes vivid colors and aristocracy in its every frame, which led to a hugely cinematic viewing experience.

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