The economic instability that fueled radical political divisions in America during the 1920s did more than lay the foundation for Universal Studios' rise to Hollywood powerhouse as the home of horror and monsters; he built that stage and defined the message the audience would receive. Between 1920 and the release of Tod Browning's version of Dracula in 1931, Americans witnessed both the most explosive growth of good economic times they had ever seen and the disappearance of those good times in the blink of an eye . Almost forgotten in the wake of the stock market crash of 1929 and the subsequent Great Depression, already in full swing by the time Bela Lugosi's urban vampire hit screens across the country, was that the values ​​of America during this period were marked by the growing fear of a The Bolshevik Revolution and the demonization of Eastern European foreigners held responsible for introducing anti-capitalist ideas into the heads of Americans, who enjoyed the good times or fought the bad times too much to notice. The monsters of the Universal Studios horror films of the 1930s – led both figuratively and literally by the character Count Dracula – are a metaphorical representation that reflects that fear and suspicion. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay David Skal calls this period of American history "The Great Abyss" and describes it as an era in which much of the population was overcome by bitterness and fear coincided with the desire for relief. It was that desire for relief from such an overwhelming emotional burden that fueled the search for some sort of scapegoat on which to take the blame (114). The 1920s had opened with a government crackdown that gave the people exactly what they wanted, even if the relief came at a price. Americans were given the scapegoats they wanted if the price they paid was ignoring that "by targeting people for deportation based on their beliefs, the Palmer raids had violated the First Amendment" (Finan 4). The Palmer Raids had both responded to and inflamed fears of foreign influence on American democracy and free enterprise by shipping out immigrants deemed too dangerous for the American way of life. The raid had been preceded two years earlier by a letter from the chairman of the joint government committee on cinematographic activities, David Niles, threatening to impose censorship on any studio that did not meet with his office before starting production of any movie. which deal with the theme of work or socialism (Nasaw, 1993, p. 219). If Universal Studios' 1931 horror landmark Dracula in any way reflects the period in which the film was made, as well as the period in which the novel was written, it is a reflection (no pun intended) of xenophobia in its most corrosive form. The scapegoat that was very real in the people of socialists like Emma Goldman deported for no good reason, manifests itself in the fictional scapegoat of the aristocratic Count of Transylvania with the power to transform men into inhuman zombies willing to do anything at his bidding and turning innocent girls into suddenly sexualized women who display a newfound independence from their men and have eyes only for the guy with the exotic accent. Lugosi's performance is cultivated and controlled in such a way that, even though he never says the words, every nuance of it screams the quote from Stoker's novel that quite sums up the social fear his character is supposed to generate: “This man belongs to, 1998.