Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.5

Dan Curtis' Dracula Blu-ray Movie Review

Dracula's Dark Shadows

Reviewed by Michael Reuben May 26, 2014

The movies have been very good to Irish author Bram Stoker. Although his novel Dracula was well reviewed upon first publication in 1897, it did not become a popular sensation until F.W. Murnau's unauthorized 1922 silent film adaptation, Nosferatu . Bela Lugosi iconic performance as Dracula in the 1931 classic film cemented the novel's reputation, but Hollywood's Dracula didn't stick that much closer to Stoker's original plot than had Murnau, who was deliberately trying to create enough differences to avoid litigation. (He failed; Stoker's widow sued anyway.) Decades later, after many cinematic variations on the Dracula legend, filmmakers began using the title Bram Stoker's Dracula to stress their fidelity to the original novel that captured the world's imagination with its tale of the undead. The familiar example is Francis Ford's Coppola's 1992 film starring Gary Oldman as a tragic figure desperate to reclaim his long-lost love.

But Coppola wasn't the first to use the title Bram Stoker's Dracula. The title had previously been claimed by Dan Curtis, creator of television's innovative horror soap opera, Dark Shadows, for a telefilm that was supposed to air in October 1973 but was pre-empted by a presidential address. The film eventually ran on February 8, 1974. Curtis shot the film in widescreen, and with alternative takes of key scenes, for eventual theatrical release in Europe, which occurred over the next several years. Ever since Coppola's Zoetrope acquired the legal rights to the name "Bram Stoker's Dracula", Curtis' version has been known as Dan Curtis' Dracula.

But even though he used Stoker's name in the original title, Curtis could not resist tinkering with the story. Stoker's Dracula was pure evil, a beast that fed on the living. Despite the changes that Murnau made in Nosferatu, his Count Orlok was a much closer approximation of Stoker's character than the charming, almost erotic figure that Lugosi created and that has informed the vampire legend ever since. For his version, with a script by prolific novelist and screenwriter Richard Matheson (author of the much-adapted I Am Legend), Curtis imported the love story he had first given to the vampire Barnabas Collins in Dark Shadows. So effective was this device that, as Curtis wryly notes in the interview included in the extras, Coppola's film silently adopted it (and, he might have added, amplified it), as if Stoker himself had always meant it to be there.

Curtis' prince of the undead is played by the late Jack Palance in a dignified performance that relies on the actor's enormous presence far more than on makeup or effects. Curtis and Palance had worked together previously on a TV adaptation of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, in which the actor once again demonstrated his flair for playing a charming villain. (The same quality can be observed all the way back in his early portrayal of the gunman Jack Wilson in Shane.) At 6' 4", the former heavyweight boxer cut an imposing and powerful figure, effectively conveying the sense of Dracula's mastery over all around him.

As in Stoker's novel, Dracula summons a British solicitor, Jonathan Harker (Murray Brown), to his castle—located in Hungary in Matheson's script—to assist him in buying a property in England. In a departure from Stoker, however, Harker never leaves the castle. Instead, having selected an estate called Carfax, Dracula departs with ten wooden boxes of earth aboard a Russian ship, the Demeter. Weeks later, the Demeter washes up on English shores, with only one man on board, dead and lashed to the wheel.

Shortly after, Lucy Westenra (Fiona Lewis, The Fury), the fiancée of Harker's close friend, Arthur Holmwood, is stricken with a mysterious illness. We know from a painting seen by Harker in Dracula's castle that Lucy bears a striking resemblance to the woman Dracula loved hundreds of years ago. Frustrated by the local doctor's inability to treat his future wife, Arthur persuades Mrs. Westenra (Pamela Brown) to let him call in a specialist, Dr. Van Helsing (Nigel Davenport, Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes). Quickly recognizing the signs of a vampire attack, Van Helsing begins assembling the usual assortment of crosses and garlic and attempts to protect Lucy from further visitations by Dracula, but he and Arthur are too late. Lucy is already under the vampire's spell.

Van Helsing and Arthur begin investigating the location of Dracula's English lair, which prompts the vampire to attack Mrs. Westenra and Lucy's friend, Mina (Penelope Horner), who was Jonathan Harker's fiancée. The battle between the forces of darkness and light eventually leads back to Dracula's castle, where the final confrontation occurs.

While adding the passionate love story between Dracula and his (reincarnated?) love, Matheson's script also streamlines Stoker's novel by omitting numerous secondary characters, including Lucy's multiple suitors and, perhaps most noteworthy, the madman Renfield. The result is an even greater focus on Dracula himself. Unlike Coppola, Curtis does not spell out Dracula's history in detail. A few abbreviated flashbacks and the portrait with Lucy's face suggest just enough to sketch the outlines. Palance's piercing gaze and fierce determination fill in the rest.

Dan Curtis' Dracula Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Confirming that he had more in mind than a TV movie, Curtis hired Oscar-winning cinematographer Oswald Morris (Fiddler on the Roof , The Odessa File) to shoot his Dracula. Both the lighting and the production design appear to have been strongly influenced by some of the better horror films from Roger Corman's production company (and that's meant as a compliment; Corman understood how to make films look like they cost much more than their budget).

According to the Blu-ray jacket, MPI's 1080p, AVC-encoded disc is derived from a 2K scan of the original camera negative. The image is impressively sharp and detailed, marred only by occasional video noise and some minor source damage. The colors are bright enough and the contrast sufficient that one can easily appreciate Curtis' unusual choice to make Dracula's castle look more like a contemporary Victorian mansion rather than the crumbling ruin that is usually portrayed. Even the Carfax property doesn't look as dilapidated as Jonathan Harker describes it, and a tomb that Van Helsing and Arthur enter in their search for clues is far less gloomy than tombs are typically depicted in vampire films. The blacks are somewhat inconsistent. Dracula's black attire is always jet black, but the night outdoors sometimes runs toward dark gray, especially outside Dracula's castle. This anomaly may be inherent in the original photography.

There are some indications of light electronic sharpening here and there, but not so much as to create edge halos or noticeably coarsen the film grain. High-frequency filtering did not appear to an issue. The average bitrate of 20.995 Mbps is low but acceptable (barely) for a film that contains lengthy passages without significant fast motion. In any case, compression artifacts did not appear to be a problem.

Dan Curtis' Dracula Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Dan Curtis' Dracula comes to Blu-ray with its original mono soundtrack encoded as lossless DTS-HD MA 2.0. It's a serviceable but unremarkable track with clearly rendered dialogue and effects and an atmospheric score by Robert Cobert, the composer for Dark Shadows. The track's dynamic range is somewhat compressed with neither a high top end nor significant bass extension, but there's nothing about it to fatigue the ear or otherwise burden the viewing experience.

Dan Curtis' Dracula Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

MPI previously released Dan Curtis' Dracula on DVD in 2008 as part of The Dan Curtis Macabre Collection. The trailer and interviews have been ported over to Blu-ray, with a few additions:

• Interview with Actor Jack Palance (480i; 1.33:1; 3:57): Interviewed twenty years after making the film, Palance recalls the experience and reflects on the character. He also says he has never watched his performance.



• Interview with Producer/Director Dan Curtis (480i; 1.33:1; 4:23): Interviewed at roughly the same time as Palance, Curtis discusses the place of his Dracula in the canon and also offers an appreciation of his star's performance.



• Outtakes (1080p; 1.78:1; 6:28): These aren't "outtakes" in the sense of bloopers, but raw footage from various alternative takes, with the slate clapping and actors breaking character.



• TV Cuts (1080p; 1.78:1; 3:41): A comparison of several scenes in two versions: one as shown in the theater (and on Blu-ray); the other as shown on TV. All of the scenes involve the staking of vampires, and in each one the difference is the amount of blood that they dying vampire spits out.



• Trailer (1080p; 1.78:1; 2:51): "Of all the horror stories ever told, one towers over them all."

Dan Curtis' Dracula Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Whether you're a fan of Dan Curtis, Jack Palance or just of Dracula stories in general, Dan Curtis' Dracula is one you should see. MPI's Blu-ray is probably the best the film has ever looked and sounded and well worth considering for your collection. Recommended.