MovieChat Forums > Dracula (1931) Discussion > what is up with that ending?

what is up with that ending?


I enjoyed the creepy pacing of the film and yes it earns the reputation of being a classic but the ending really bugged me, it was so unbelievably anti climatic and dull, making me think it was unfinished. and they just rushed it to release it on time (maybe that is what happened) not to mention in one scene Dracula knows his lair has been discovered yet in the next scene he's asleep in his coffin, i mean what is that? Would like to get thoughts on this

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The film was originally intended to have a bigger budget but the Great Depression put an end to that.

If you watch the Spanish Version, it makes more sense. Dracula went to sleep in his coffin because of the sunlight. It was disappointing to those expecting a final confrontation like the novel, but they spent all the money on the lavish sets that having a big battle at the end would have thrown it over budget. They didn't think the film would do so well.

Still, right up until the ending, it remains one of the better Dracula films.

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I did not like that ending either, nor any ending that has ever been. The Francis Ford Coppola 1992 ending was closest to the novel, but it was still not a good one. The ending of the novel should be the ending of any movie of this kind. At the end of the novel, one feels a sense of sympathy for Dracula because he has a look of peace, which some might interpret that he, at some point did not want this "life" he was leading at all. The beginnings of any movie of this kind has also been wrong. Once Dracula and Harker meet until he leaves for England, all that they say to each other should be in the beginning. Why? We get a sense of who he is.

"Do All Things For God's Glory"-1 Corinthians 10:31
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I just saw a screening of this in a cinema, there seemed to be a mixed reaction to the film as a whole - some people just found it laughable (though I enjoyed it) but there was a sort of mass '...oh' when the film just ended. I think it's made worse by the fact that Van Helsing says he will follow them up, suggesting we are going to see him do something but instead they leave and you just get 'The End'. Very anticlimactic!

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The ending was anticlimatic as it would be to violent for an audience of that time and they ran out of money.

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I agree with you that the was a bit anticlimatic. But so were some of the other Universal Monsters movies. Especially the later ones. Like Ghost of Frankenstein and Frankenstein meets the Wolf Man.

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