As someone who has read the book, I must say that the '31 adaptation doesn't stand up to the novel. In fact, that version of Dracula wasn't technically based off of the novel itself, but was instead the adaptation of a play based off of the book. It is one of the downsides of the movie that the plot is much too simplified. Granted, it dates back to the 1930s, when movie norms were quite different from what they are now, but when I compare the movie with the novel, I can't help but notice certain jarring simplifications. Easily the most unsettling is the treatment of the "White Lady." The audience is shown that one of Dracula's victims has become a vampire, and is preying on children. And then?.... Nothing. The main plot line continues on without any resolution whatsoever of what you would think would be an important issue. After all, this only means that there's a second vampire loose in London.
On the plus side, however, there is the superb performance of Bela Lugosi, who effuses a wonderfully sinister charm and charisma. It is commonly said that Lugosi, a Hungarian, had to learn his lines phonetically because he didn't speak English when the movie was made. This is actually incorrect, although there is an element of truth to it, as Lugosi had played Dracula for years in the stage version mentioned above and had to learn his lines phonetically because of his then-poor English.
The 1991 version adheres more closely to the novel. It still has multiple alterations, however, but it is far from the simple story of the original movie. Perhaps the alteration that I most like is the movie's introduction, which provides the origin story of the dark count. In fact, the overall arc of the movies suggests that Dracula is not so much a horror villain as a tragic character, a man who, when confronted with immeasurable and eternal loss, chose to renounce both his soul and humanity, and suffers the consequences over the following centuries.
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| Definitely an old man... |
Another distinction of this version is its quite overt sexuality. I generally think it works on multiple levels. It taps into the longstanding perception that, in the stuffy Victorian age, sexuality was tantamount to depravity. And few things are as depraved as the depiction of the undead slacking their lust for the living (and not just for their blood...). Then there's the juxtaposition of the sexually repressed Jonathan, generally considered the hero of the story, with the aggressively sexual Dracula, which further questions the distinction between the living and the dead.
It goes without saying that Gary Oldman is fantastic as Dracula, and Anthony Hopkins is a riot to watch as a callously straight-forward Van Helsing. Keanu Reeves, on the other hand, is cringe-inducing, mostly because of his horrific attempt to use a British accent. Among other butcheries, he possibly committed the most laughable mispronunciation of Budapest, "Byudapest," during a voice-over narration. I don't know what Francis Ford Coppola was thinking when he cast him.
