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Ok, I can only try to make this one comprehensible, and if I fail, it's
not my fault for a change: Sir Karell Borotyn (Holmes Herbert) is
murdered in some Czech village, and everybody, even the local Doctor
(Donald Meek), thinks it's the work of vampires, a popular superstition in
the region - much to the dismay of investigating inspector Neumann (Lionel
Atwill) of course, who can't pin a murder on supernatural beings, now can
he? So he calls in a scientist from Prague, Professor Zelen (Lionel
Barrymore), who he hopes will shed a different light on the investigations
- but far from it, Professor Zelen actually backs the vampire story and
claims that a certain Count Mora (Bela Lugosi) and his daughter Luna
(Caroll Borland) are actually living in the now abandoned mansion of the
dead man. On top of that, it seems that Sir Borodyn's daughter Irena
(Elizabeth Allan), now living at her guardian Baron Otto's (Jean Hersholt)
place, is now under attack from Mora and daughter, who even have brought
her father back to (vampiric) life. Eventually, the professor has
persuaded the inspector to believe his vampire tales, and the two of them
together with Baron Otto go vampire hunting - and suddenly they put the
Baron under hypnosis, because you know, the whole vampire set-up was just
an elaborate ploy to lure Baron Otto, chief suspect in the murder of Sir
Borotyn, back to the deceased's castle, where he is now hypnotized into
recreating what happened in the murder night - and it turns out that after
a quarrel about Borotyn's daughter, whom the Baron wanted to marry but
whom her father intended to give to another man (Henry Wadsworth), the
Baron poisoned Borotyn, then sucked out all of his blood to make him look
like a vampire victim, and used local superstition to divert suspicion
from himself. When all of this is properly recreated to everyone's
satisfaction, the Baron is arrested, the Professor turns out to be a
police inspector. And the vampires? They were mere actors ... With
all respect to the silent classic this movie was based on, London After
Midnight starring Lon Chaney and also directed by Tod Browning, I
can't help but state that Mark of the Vampire is probably the worst
written horror film of the whole black and white era - and yes, that
specifically includes the many ill-conceived clunkers that e.g. Monogram
tried to sell us as shockers in the 1940's. There is nothing, I repeat,
nothing in this film that's even remotely believable, from the set-up (a
man trying to blame a murder on vampires and almost succceeding - in the
1930's, as it is at one point pointed out) to the elaborate ploy (lifted
straight out of Browning's Dracula)
to lure the Baron back to the castle, to the pay-off via hypnotism (why
not just hypnotize him to tell the truth in the first place?). On top of
that, Tod Browning's direction is utterly uninspired this time around.
Sure, he creates a certain creepy atmosphere the old-fashioned way, but he
was capable of so much more, just compare his scare tactics here to the
first half of Dracula, and you'll
see what I mean. And speaking of Dracula:
Bela Lugosi, the main attraction of this film, as it was his first
appearance as a vampire in four years, does little more than a tired
recreation of the role that made him famous, and he is not helped by the
script either that not only underuses him but doesn't give him any
dialogue until the film's final punchline. And to once again compare this
film to London After Midnight: Several of the plot elements have been
changed or moved around - including splitting Lon Chaney's character into
two (Lionel Barrymore and Bela Lugosi) - here, and always for the worse. In all, pretty much a
trainwreck of a movie, one all vintage horror lovers will want to see
that's for sure, and many will even call a classic just because of the
cast and the fact that it was produced by a big studio - but boy, this
film really sucks.
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