Runtime: 80 minutes
Directed by: Robert Siodmak
Starring: Lon Chaney, Jr., Robert Paige, Louise Allbritton, Evelyn Ankers, Frank Craven
From: Universal
A Southern Gothic vampire movie? Sure!
One nice aspect of Letterboxd is that you can categorize movies in a panoply of different ways. One is seeing how many pictures in a given year you've experienced. It's been happenstance that only a few have been from 1943. Besides trying to fill that hole, I knew beforehand this is a Southern Gothic horror set in Louisiana and that intrigued. BTW, I know someone from the Cajun State who had damage done due to Hurricane Ida and while things still aren't 100% with them, at least they and their family survived that awful storm.
Admittedly, Lon Chaney, Jr. does not do the best or even the most memorable portrayal of Count Dracula... excuse me, Count Alucard. Yep, it uses that old gag, which more than once the movie literally spells out for the audience. Indeed he's the son of Lugosi's character from the '31 film and is now in Louisiana as “it's fresh soil.” With his hypnotic power he has the daughter of a wealthy plantation owner under her spell... no, not “plantation” as in “still owning slaves” as it's decades after that, although there are still Black servants... anyhow, several attempt to both literally and figuratively put a stake into the heart of this insidious plan, including a professor named Laszlo.
Despite some flaws, overall I found it to be a pretty good time. The best aspect is the mood/atmosphere: this is heavy in both & it sets the ambiance of its deep South setting. After all, there's a voodoo practitioner named Queen Zimba who is briefly seen. Even though Chaney is better playing Larry Talbot/The Wolf Man, he is not exactly in every scene here, the rest of the cast is better w/ their roles & the story has some unexpected twists that kept me engaged. Mix in a story that has an unintended subtext of a bunch of men telling the lead girl what to do and Son of Dracula was a reminder why this won't be the only horror movie of early sound era I'll be viewing during this spooky season.
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