Vampyr (1932). *****
This film is one of Carl Theodore Dreyer's best movies, a film which relies on suggested rather than visible horror. It has a remarkably gloomy sense of atmosphere; every shot is as carefully composed as the finest photograph. It is probably one of the most artistically crafted of any vampire film, perhaps of all horror films — with the exception of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919) and Nosferatu (1922).
The Vampire Bat (1933). **
A rather run-of-the-mill horror picture which has a superb cast: Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray, and Dwight Frye, who played the role of Renfield in Browning's Dracula, as well as the hunchbacked laboratory assistant of Dr. Frankenstein in Frankenstein (1931). The story takes place in a remote Balkan village, where a "mad" doctor tries to conceal his bizarre experiments by creating a vampire "scare."
The Mark of the Vampire (1935). ***
Made in 1935, but not released until 1972, the film is a re-make by Tod Browning of his earlier silent film London After Midnight. Browning expanded the original story by adding a seductive female ghoul (played by Carol Borland). The movie is memorable because it was the last of Tod Browning's horror films — four years later, in 1939, Browning retired from filmmaking altogether.
Dracula's Daughter (1936). **
This film was directed by Lambert Hillyer for Universal. Hillyer was a prolific director, responsible for directing dozens of "B-grade" westerns. The story is based on a short story by Bram Stoker entitled "Dracula's Ghost," which was originally part of Dracula, but extracted just before the novel's release. Thus, one can see how derivative vampire films were becoming. The direction was increasingly hackneyed, and the writers were desperately lacking in inspiration. Universal did the same thing with the Frankenstein series; they produced countless spin-offs of the original, and each subsequent film was representative of uninspired artistic conviction.
