This starts out looking like a conventional horror film. Baron Otto (Jean Hersholt) comes downstairs to inform the servants that their beloved master, Sir Karell, has been murdered.
Upstairs, in Sir Karell's office, the slumped body of the nobleman is examined. Dr. Doskil (Donald Meeks) is the superstitious and nervous one. He notes the two marks on Sir Karell's neck (not that big of a deal, maybe there before the murder), and that the body has been completely drained of blood (a very big deal, impossible to explain). His explanation - vampires. Inspector Neumann from Prague (Lionel Atwill) basically says poppycock, and goes around doing a methodical investigation, but comes up empty handed.
Nearly a year later, shortly after the marriage of Sir Karell's daughter, Irena, to a young man with no real station in life or money of his own, odd things begin to happen. A local legendary vampire father/daughter team - Count Mora and daughter Luna - are spotted wandering near the old castle where the baron was murdered. Apparently the trauma of living in the same place where her father was killed was too much for Irena, so that castle was abandoned and now she is living in equally luxurious digs nearby. First Irena's husband is attacked near the old castle, but escapes with his life, then the vampires Luna and Mora start showing up and repeatedly attack Irena, and it is found that Sir Karell's grave is empty. Professor Zelin (Lionel Barrymore) - obviously a clone of Dracula's Van Helsing, shows up and assures everyone that this is the work of vampires, that Sir Karell is now one himself, and Sir Karell's daughter is next.
Unlike Dracula, there turns out to be a logical explanation for everything. Or at least there is supposed to be - I'll let you watch and find out. Just suffice it to say that this evidence of vampirism is a huge ruse backed by the police that includes just about everybody being in on the plan EXCEPT the person that the police believe is guilty. If they are wrong, they have probably tipped off the actual murderer! Now let me go through the rest of the plot holes. Sir Karell's castle that the vampires haunt was a beautiful home just a year before at the time of the murder. In just one year's time the windows are broken, the masonry is crumbling, there are spider webs everywhere, and rats and huge spiders rummage through what one can only call ruins? The actual murderer gained nothing by committing the murder - the murderer never got what the murderer wanted, and apparently didn't even try to get it after Sir Karell died. So what was the point? Plus the film clearly shows one of the "vampires" turning into a bat - with no logical explanation. Finally, there is no satisfactory answer as to how the killer removed and disposed of all of Sir Karell's blood.
Why do I like it? The performances and the pace mainly. Everybody is perfect at their roles. Atwill as the stiff police inspector, Elizabeth Allan as the distraught daughter, Donald Meeks as the nervous physician, but most of all Lionel Barrymore as the vampire hunter was a delight. He took what could have been a hammy role and made it work. He would have been a great Van Helsing in the original Dracula.
There were tons of scenes deleted from this film that might have caused it to make more sense, including the description of an incestuous relationship that existed in life between legendary vampires Luna and Count Mora that explains the bullet wound clearly visible in Mora's forehead that left me scratching my head UNTIL I heard the commentary on the DVD. For MGM to mainly be a studio for churning out dramas not horror in the 1930's, I think they did a good job with this one considering the limitations the production code put on them at the time.
Upstairs, in Sir Karell's office, the slumped body of the nobleman is examined. Dr. Doskil (Donald Meeks) is the superstitious and nervous one. He notes the two marks on Sir Karell's neck (not that big of a deal, maybe there before the murder), and that the body has been completely drained of blood (a very big deal, impossible to explain). His explanation - vampires. Inspector Neumann from Prague (Lionel Atwill) basically says poppycock, and goes around doing a methodical investigation, but comes up empty handed.
Nearly a year later, shortly after the marriage of Sir Karell's daughter, Irena, to a young man with no real station in life or money of his own, odd things begin to happen. A local legendary vampire father/daughter team - Count Mora and daughter Luna - are spotted wandering near the old castle where the baron was murdered. Apparently the trauma of living in the same place where her father was killed was too much for Irena, so that castle was abandoned and now she is living in equally luxurious digs nearby. First Irena's husband is attacked near the old castle, but escapes with his life, then the vampires Luna and Mora start showing up and repeatedly attack Irena, and it is found that Sir Karell's grave is empty. Professor Zelin (Lionel Barrymore) - obviously a clone of Dracula's Van Helsing, shows up and assures everyone that this is the work of vampires, that Sir Karell is now one himself, and Sir Karell's daughter is next.
Unlike Dracula, there turns out to be a logical explanation for everything. Or at least there is supposed to be - I'll let you watch and find out. Just suffice it to say that this evidence of vampirism is a huge ruse backed by the police that includes just about everybody being in on the plan EXCEPT the person that the police believe is guilty. If they are wrong, they have probably tipped off the actual murderer! Now let me go through the rest of the plot holes. Sir Karell's castle that the vampires haunt was a beautiful home just a year before at the time of the murder. In just one year's time the windows are broken, the masonry is crumbling, there are spider webs everywhere, and rats and huge spiders rummage through what one can only call ruins? The actual murderer gained nothing by committing the murder - the murderer never got what the murderer wanted, and apparently didn't even try to get it after Sir Karell died. So what was the point? Plus the film clearly shows one of the "vampires" turning into a bat - with no logical explanation. Finally, there is no satisfactory answer as to how the killer removed and disposed of all of Sir Karell's blood.
Why do I like it? The performances and the pace mainly. Everybody is perfect at their roles. Atwill as the stiff police inspector, Elizabeth Allan as the distraught daughter, Donald Meeks as the nervous physician, but most of all Lionel Barrymore as the vampire hunter was a delight. He took what could have been a hammy role and made it work. He would have been a great Van Helsing in the original Dracula.
There were tons of scenes deleted from this film that might have caused it to make more sense, including the description of an incestuous relationship that existed in life between legendary vampires Luna and Count Mora that explains the bullet wound clearly visible in Mora's forehead that left me scratching my head UNTIL I heard the commentary on the DVD. For MGM to mainly be a studio for churning out dramas not horror in the 1930's, I think they did a good job with this one considering the limitations the production code put on them at the time.