It's a good entry of its type.

Despite all the accepted props, from the lonely Southern plantation set in a miasmic bog to the squeaking bats and creaking coffins, this thriller is a pretty pallid offering.

The script is far from wonderful, and offers Siodmak little to get his teeth into, notwithstanding a beautifully atmospheric first entry for the Count (Chaney and coffin rising from the misty depths of a lake) and an effective finale.

A tedious tale with perhaps the worst performance ever in a film by Lon Chaney, Jr. A fencepost has more charisma than Chaney as Count Alucard. Painfully slow and awkward.