Though the film still ends a little abruptly, the absolute spectacle of the climax definitely means it concludes on the right foot.

1. Dracula 1958 ⭐⭐⭐⭐
2. Nosferatu 1922 ⭐⭐⭐⭐
3. Dracula 1931 ⭐⭐⭐1/2

And finally, Dracula's demise is not anticlimactic. Having already shown the stake-through-the-heart method on the bride and Lucy, we get a full-blown scrap for survival between the Count and Helsing before his flesh melts away in the sunlight.

This is the most Lucy's time as a vampire has been put to screen, the heartbreak of her suffering, death, and damnation all effectively communicated. I think all we need now is to see her actually prey on someone, perhaps whittle down the fiancées that way.

Between this, the most thematically in keeping score thus far and the lovely, if occasionally tacky looking, set design, it ups the atmosphere of the first two by a significant margin.

Lee's magnetism and the fixation of his victims ups the tension magnificently, in a way that only really felt hinted at in the chapter where Lucy is entranced and lured to Whitby Abbey.

Between the book and the first two films, I'd started to wonder where this assessment of Dracula as a sexual being came from. Now that we've gotten to Christopher Lee, I get it.

The idea that he will just prey on his next victim, move on and disappear into the night really is all you need to communicate Dracula's menace. And from there, the remainder of the book's plot moves ahead mostly intact.

From there, Van Helsing is our protagonist, determined to eliminate Dracula before he kills again. No plot to take over England/Karlstadt this time either. Dracula simply sees pictures of Lucy and chooses her as his next victim, leaving the castle post haste.

And, as it turns out, killing Johnathan off doesn't have to be as radically plot altering as I'd previously predicted, now that Lucy's three fiancées have been reappropriated, and it helps, once again, to establish Dracula as a threat.

Jonathan's intentions to kill Dracula at the castle eliminates some of the mystery from the opening chapters, but it proves no great loss as Arthur, Mina and Lucy remain unsuspecting victims of a threat we now understand the full calamity of.

Dracula has only one "Bride", appearing both as human victim and mindless monster to give a full scope of Dracula's terror. Her earlier death at Jonathan's hands also gives an early demonstration of the vampire's weakness.

Jonathan Harker and Van Helsing are colleagues aware of Dracula's vampirism from the start. Jonathan is engaged to Lucy who is Arthur's daughter. Arthur is married to Mina. No Renfield or Quincy. Dr. Seward's role is restricted to the family doctor.

This is the most streamlined adaptation of the book thus far, full of big and small changes that all the same seem to be in aid of making the most faithful version thus far.