Writer-director Craig Mitchell’s conceit imagines sinister doings on the shared set of Universal’s famous 1931 “Dracula,” which was shot with both English and Spanish-language casts.
The talkies’ arrival was a major hardship in many respects for the movie industry, as theater owners had to install expensive new equipment, and studios could no longer easily export fresh product to lucrative foreign markets. One solution weighed to the latter dilemma was making alternative versions of features in different languages. Universal took that idea farther than most in late 1930 by shooting “Dracula” twice on the same sets, with entirely different casts and directors. One was, of course, the legendary Tod Browning film with Bela Lugosi. The other, directed by George Melford (who’d guided Rudolph Valentino in his most famous role as “The Sheik”), had Spanish emigre Carlos Villarias as the caped bloodsucker. It was forgotten for decades until a 1990s restoration and revival led some latter-day viewers to pronounce it the better of the two.
That curious footnote to cinematic history has now inspired “Los Vampires,” the first directorial feature in decades from scenarist Craig Mitchell. Like the 2000 Willem Dafoe vehicle “Shadow of the Vampire,” this is a fiction spun from the reality of a fabled production shoot. Henry Ian Cusick and Thomas Kretschmann play fictionalized stand-ins for Villarias and Lugosi, as immigrant actors touchy about “sharing” a starring role that could be a huge break for both.
In the somewhat convoluted progress of Mitchell’s script, their ego war is eventually eclipsed by fears there’s a genuine murderer on the loose — perhaps even an actual vampire. Not always very precisely balanced between horror, homage and mystery, this intriguing if unevenly realized construct will nonetheless lure genre fans and nostalgists alike with its imagined back chapter of golden-age Hollywood.
It starts with nervous Luis de Ossario (Cusik) arriving on the Universal soundstage, where he’s dismayed by a front-office representative’s command that he watch the dailies of English-language scenes shot during the day, then precisely mimic them in Spanish each night. Pride insists he ignore that directive — after all, he too has been a star, called the “Spanish Sheik” by fan mags. But it’s additionally irritating when he’s approached by Romanian thespian Kurt Orlov (Kretschmann), who’s essayed the Count to great success onstage, and likewise advised to imitate his every gesture and intonation. Refusing to do so, Luis stirs a rivalry and potentially endangers his own employment.
Still, the dual production goes on as planned. Anxiety heightened by the exhausting nocturnal schedule, Ossario is further rattled by glimpsing sexually explicit footage presumably shot as blackmail fodder. It involves Vianca Sugura (Daniela Couso), the beauteous albeit wholly inexperienced young woman hired as ingenue. Other unsettling revelations include word that the actress originally hired for that part was killed — a fate that later befalls others, including convent-raised Vianca’s protectress Sister Aubrey (Carol Abney).
There are additional, underdeveloped subplots. The intended enigmatic blurring between illusion, reality, the supernatural and sordid here too often just feels unfocused, with occasional detours into humor contributing to a wobbly tone. The best sequences seize upon the atmospheric potential of recreated studio-Gothic sets, though there’s surprisingly scant use of B&W film-within-the-film bits. Itself shot entirely on a soundstage, “Los Vampires” occasionally betrays budgetary limits in unconvincing period flavor, despite good work from production designer Ricardo Jattan and costumer Petra Larsen.
The lead actors do well enough on this slippery slope. Cusick and Kretschmann offer complementary chords of variable petulance and insecurity, as newcomer Cuoso ably negotiates her character’s shifting ambiguities. The supporting cast turns are competent if sometimes broad. If Mitchell’s resolution to his script’s dangling questions feels somewhat rote, a graceful epilogue leaps several decades forward to end matters on an interesting, unexpected note.
While the Lugosi “Dracula” was a huge hit, the Spanish version’s disappointing box office helped curtail future such endeavors in Hollywood, particularly since fast-evolving dubbing technology soon provided a cheaper alternative. Far from a mere copy of its English-language equivalent, however, Melford’s movie is considerably longer, with marked differences of dialogue, narrative sequence and costuming. Those who found Browning’s take too stagey have judged its doppelgänger more fluidly cinematic. Still, only one person became a celluloid legend from Universal’s gambit — and that person wasn’t Carlos Villarias, who outlived Lugosi by two decades yet never achieved anything like the same renown.