Plot: You already know it. Young solicitor is coming to Transylvania to count Dracula's castle on a business matter. Village people of warn him superstitions about vampires inhabit the castle.
The painted exterior background is a minus of movie in comparison with the movie Nosferatu, the eine Symphonie des Grauens, which exterior was filmed outdoors, but with the arrival of the night it is delight the fog that adds confusion to the fate of a young lawyer. Bela Lugosi is of course, excellent, his diction is slower and more noble than in the year's younger movie White Zombie, facial expression more maniacal and mentally unstable, with perverse image (what to expect from a vampire when he is looking at blood. The another actor performing coachman acted with the eyes, but this time it is the eyes of fear. Dwight Frye makes a great second in his insanity. The dusty interior of Dracula's castle, full of cobwebs, has its horrific atmosphere, if it is about silence when getting up from coffins, escaping rodents from waking vampires or blood running down the stairs. Artificial movement of bats spoils the atmosphere a bit, but the effort to get as much detail as possible cannot be denied. The first meeting of the young solicitor and the main negative character is not as atmospheric as in Nosferatu. Here, the scene is trying to look spectacular, but it's just to cover the absence of a particular style that the theme directly asks. The silent scenes with Max Schreck on the ship are more impressive than those in this Lugosi movie. Although the dynamic camera in the sanatorium environment underlines the atmosphere of madness, Renfield here as a character does not have as much intensity as in the version of Francis Ford Coppola. Van Helsing was already more active and action able, but this one has its charisma. Nosferatu used more shadows and light / dark as well as unrealistically distorted environment because of its style - the German Expressionist - and made Dracula (Orlok) a specific monster. Compared to a year younger film Vampyr, Dracula‘s atmosphere is not enough for so many cult scenes, work with shadows, surrealism and a way of filming. In the end, solving the story sounds a bit simple and the film looks like a nice B movie.
Horror: You will be frighten. The director Todd Browning and actor Bela Lugosi took care of ft. Actor's personification of vampire and atmosphere are well created.
Conclusion: 6/10. Pros: Lugosi and atmosphere. Cons: Not as good as its strong competition like Vampyr (1932) or Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (1922).
