Mark of the Vampire (1935) - film review

Late one evening, Sir Karell Barotyn is murdered at his castle residence.  From the pinpoint wounds on his neck and the fact that his body has been drained of blood, Dr Doskil concludes that he was killed by a vampire.  Police Inspector Neumann refuses to accept this fanciful notion and begins his investigation to find the real murderer.  Meanwhile, Barotyn’s daughter Irena moves into the house of Baron Otto, a friend of the family.  A year later, Barotyn’s death still hasn’t been accounted for, but Professor Zelen is convinced that he was a victim of the supernatural.  Zelen’s theory appears to be confirmed when Irena and her fiancé Fedor are attacked by a vampire named Count Mora.   The latter has been seen haunting the grounds of Barotyn’s deserted castle with the ghostly apparition of a young woman.  In a desperate attempt to save Irena from a fate worse than death, Zelen sets out to destroy the vampires.  But, all is not what it seems...

Universal Pictures’ success in the Gothic horror field in the early 1930s encouraged the other major Hollywood studios to get in on the act, and MGM was among the first to profit from a growing appetite for graveyard ghouls, mad scientists and dark houses with something decidely nasty in the cellar.  One of MGM’s better offerings in the genre is Mark of the Vampire.  Whilst it has a reputation as one of the finest horror films of the 1930s, opinion is divided as to whether this really counts as a horror film at all.  It could legitimately be described as a murder mystery dressed up as a Gothic horror. 

For the first two-thirds of the film, you get the distinct impression that Tod Browning is attempting to remake his earlier Dracula (1931).  The visuals are remarkably similar and Bela Lugosi is again cast in his most famous role, that of the enigmatic vampiric count (albeit with a different name).  The plot twist in the final third of the film effectively dispels this illusion and it is hard not to feel a little cheated by the screenwriter’s mischievous sleight of hand.

Mark of the Vampire is actually a remake of Browning’s earlier silent film, London After Midnight (1927), which starred Lon Chaney (playing both the detective and the vampire) and for which there is no known print in existence.

The film has much the same strengths and weaknesses as Browning’s Dracula, although the visual effects are somewhat more convincing.  On the downside, the narrative drags and some of the performances are painfully stilted.  However, these failings are more than compensated for by the striking set design and expressionistic cinematography, which both bring a chilling Gothic atmosphere and dark lyrical quality to the piece.  

Although he only has a few lines at the end of the film, Bela Lugosi dominates the film, exuding an aura of pure Satanic evil. His presence is enough to chill the blood of any spectator and you can’t help lamenting the fact that he would get to play the vampire in just one more film, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948).

© James Travers 2009

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