"Los Vampires" Review: A Charming But Uneven Hollywood Throwback Where Two Draculas Clash

The arrival of sound cinema was, in many ways, a massive upheaval for the film industry: theater owners had to install expensive new equipment, while studios could no longer export their products to lucrative foreign markets as easily as before. One of the era's solutions to that second problem was shooting alternate versions of the same film in different languages.

Universal took this idea further than most studios at the end of 1930, shooting 'Dracula' twice on the same sets with completely different casts and directors. One, of course, was the legendary film starring Bela Lugosi and directed by Tod Browning. The other bore the signature of George Melford, who had directed Rudolph Valentino in 'The Sheik'; the caped bloodsucker was played by Spanish immigrant actor Carlos Villarias. This second version was forgotten for decades, but after restorations and revival screenings in the 1990s, some viewers declared it the better of the two.

Writer-director Craig Mitchell's 'Los Vampires' imagines the sinister events unfolding on that very shared set: the rivalry between two Draculas, with one crew working days and the other nights on the same sets, spiraling into a tension woven from jealousy, class divides and eerie coincidences.

The film's greatest strength is its atmosphere: period-accurate design, cinematography that plays with shadow, and a sly irony underscoring the secondary status the studio system assigned to the Spanish-speaking crew. However, the narrative sometimes loses its balance as it swings between fictional tension and a lesson in film history; some side characters remain underdeveloped.

Still, for those who share a cinephile's curiosity about 'Dracula's lost twin, 'Los Vampires' offers an engaging watch despite its flaws.