Review – Mark of the Vampire

Wow, was this ever a strange one. For the first 45 minutes or so, this appears to be an attempt by Todd Browning and Bela Lugosi to re-reap the Dracula rewards by making another vampire movie. The technical quality here is better than the original horror masterpiece, but almost as if by exchange the characters and plot are nowhere near as interesting. Indeed, I found my attention wandering. However, toward the end I returned from a bathroom break to discover that I appeared to be watching an entirely different movie. What had been a standard vampire flick had suddenly become a run-of-the-mill murder mystery with a hypnotism twist. I’m not sure who that was supposed to please. Perhaps the fan base for vampire movies that turn out to be detective dramas was bigger back in the 1930s than it is now. See if desperate