As pointed out by Tom Weaver in his book Poverty Row Horrors, its a mystery why the poverty row studios made so few vampire movies - vampires are cheap, effective, well known. Maybe they were scared tackling Universal head on. This is a rare poverty row item from PRC. It rehashes the story of Dracula with George Zucco, that solid second tier horror star, playing dual roles of the Dracula type vampire and his twin brother, the Van Helsing character.
Vampire Zucco is after young Mary Carlise, the Lucy character - who has a dull Jonathan Harker fiancee played woodenly by Ned Young. Dwight Frye livens up things considerably reprising his Renfield performance as the vampire's helper. The idea of having the vampire and nemesis as identical twins was a good one.
Like so many low budget horrors, it starts with a bang and tails off, being unable to develop momentum. The filmmakers make the mistake of having a mob march on Zucco (they think the good brother is the killer) without having money for extras. For some reason they don't embrace the vampire mystique that much either eg Zucco became a vampire through black magic not being bitten. It's not particularly well directed either. However fans of Zucco and Frye will get a lot out of it.
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