 Dracula's transition from bat to person is always done off-camera.The film also employs extended periods of silence and character close-ups for dramatic effect, and employs two expository intertitles and a closeup of a newspaper article to advance the story, a seeming holdover from silent films; a point made by online film critic James Berardinelli is that the actors' performance style seems to belong to the silent era.Director Tod Browning had a solid reputation as a silent film director, having made them since 1915, but he never felt completely at ease with sound films.