How Dracula And Vampires Influenced Other Movie Monsters, From Zombies To Mummies And More – /Film

"The Mummy," starring the great Boris Karloff, was the third Universal Classic Monsters film, after "Dracula" and "Frankenstein," which came back-to-back in 1931. Karloff played the Monster in "Frankenstein," and by 1932, he was so famous that he received mononymous billing as KARLOFF in the movie poster for "The Mummy."

While Imhotep, the Mummy, forged his own path, driving men to madness with the very sight of his walking form, his first movie is still derivative of "Dracula" in some ways. It begins right with the opening credits, which take a direct cue from those in "Dracula" by utilizing the same piece of music from the Russian ballet "Swan Lake."

Then, there is the cast. As the occult expert, Dr. Muller, in "The Mummy," Edward Van Sloan is essentially playing a new version of his "Dracula" character, the aforementioned vampire-hunter extraordinaire, Van Helsing. Had Universal's Dark Universeplans not imploded after the 2017 "Mummy" film, it's possible that a modern iteration of Van Helsing could have very well faced both Dracula and Imhotep in a 21st-century shared universe.

It's subtler in "Dracula" than "The Mummy,"where the visible effect of tampering withcultural artifacts is to bring down a curse on colonial powers,but there is a streak of imperialism and Eurocentrism running through these old films. Again, they are products of their time. In "The Mummy," as in "Dracula" and "White Zombie," the foreign ghoul has set his sights on a white woman Zita Johann instead of Helen Chandler with a love interest played by David Warren (who filled the John Harker role in "Dracula.")

Though Zohann's character is half-Egyptian, she herself was Austrian-American, while Karloff was English and Lugosi was Hungarian.Imhotep is Egyptian instead of Transylvanian or Haitian, but like Dracula with Renfield, he also recruits a servant, The Nubian (Noble Johnson), from the ranks of the civilized. Meanwhile, the greatest threat in "Dracula" from coming into contact with an exotic vampire Other seems to be that he will besmirch the good honor of a Victorian gentlewoman.

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How Dracula And Vampires Influenced Other Movie Monsters, From Zombies To Mummies And More - /Film

Reviewed and Recommended by Erik Baquero