Recent attempts at blending horror and humor owe a great debt of gratitude to this 1935 Tod Browning classic. Browning, who ran away from home at the age of sixteen to join the circus as a clown and contortionist, is best known as the director of such horror staples as Dracula and Freaks. Mark of the Vampire, the remake of his own silent film London After Midnight, but transported to Czechoslovakia, is one of the many collaborations between the director and the legendary Lon Chaney, an actor whose qualities were an eerily good match for a macabre director such as Browning. Add to this mix the considerable talents of Bela Lugosi and Lionel Barrymore, and the careful eye of cinematographer James Wong Howe, and you’ve got this classic chiller.