Dracula (1979)

If Langella’s eyes weren’t vibrating, he would have been OK. Did he have some kind of problem? Was he on speed? I wish I had his effect on women. Langella kinda looks like Mike Kazen. Unfortunately, you never see him really biting into someone’s neck. He never even gets vampire fangs. You only see vampire fangs once, with the woman.

Not a terribly good or in-depth story. It’s almost totally character-driven. Definitely felt like it was an adaptation of a play. The lovemaking scene was horrible. The film begged for nudity, and we never got it. It was R-rated, I don’t know why we never saw some tittie. The horse sliding to a stop and hitting the car was hilarious.

Cheesy special effects (bat effects, bat noises, Black Hole/Final Countdown smoke ring effect, solar flare, that piece of shit kite at the end). A few decent effects (black/red eyes, stake into the girl, cutting into the chest). The editing wasn’t the greatest (she runs throught the rain and then her dress is dry). Somehow it seems like a rookie production. A few cool shots of the mansion, though. Nice Vertigo imitation. Cool font for the graphics. It definitely sounds like a John Williams score.

The cool thing about well-made period pieces is that you can’t tell when the film was made, except through careful examination of the physical quality of the film. Except for Harker’s doofus haircut and Dracula’s Saturday Night Fever haircut, you can’t tell that this film was made in 1979.