"Dracula" What effect do you think the 1931 "Dracula" had on that time period?

Question

I am doing a humanities-esque project relating events which occured in the 30's and what effect(s) they had on the economy, the population, and the cultural aspects of the time. Thanks for sharing your opinion/ other input- it helps.

Answer 1

When the film finally premiered on Valentine's Day 1931, newspapers reported that members of the audiences fainted in shock at the horror onscreen. This publicity, shrewdly orchestrated by the film studio, helped ensure people came to see the film, if for no other reason than curiosity. Dracula was a big gamble for a major Hollywood studio to undertake. In spite of the literary credentials of the source material, it was uncertain if an American audience was prepared for a serious full length supernatural chiller. Sure, America had been exposed to other chillers before, such as The Cat and the Canary but this was a horror story with no comic relief or trick ending that down played the supernatural.

Nervous executives breathed a collective sigh of relief when Dracula proved to be a huge box office sensation, and later that year Universal would release Frankenstein to even greater acclaim. Dracula ushered in a new era of Hollywood: The American Horror Movie, and before long every producer in Hollywood, and indeed around the world, was cashing in on the success of Tod Browning's movie. Universal in particular would become the forefront of early horror cinema, with a canon of films including, The Mummy, The Invisible Man, Bride of Frankenstein, and The Wolf Man.