In recent years, a number of film historians have discovered that F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu (1922) did not, as was long believed, represent the first occasion on which Bram Stoker's Dracula was adapted for the screen. Instead, Hungarian director Karoly Lajthay's Drakula halála, even though it was hardly faithful to the novel, marked the character's earliest film appearance, incorporating Stoker's vampire character into a tale that also drew heavily on Robert Wiene's Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (1920). Despite the growing awareness of Drakula halála, however, little is known of the film's production or its storyline, particularly in English-language texts.

Announcing that the film was being produced, the Hungarian trade publication Képes Mozivilág wrote in 1921:

Though the publication mistakenly named Wells as the author rather than Stoker, it did indicate that Lajthay intended to translate the “basic ideas” of Stoker's Dracula onto the screen. Even if it would not become a direct adaptation of the novel, Drakula halála would rely heavily upon it for story ideas. Its Drakula was not based on Vlad the Impaler or some new character: Bram Stoker's Dracula would become Karoly Lajthay's Drakula.

Born in Marosvasarhely, Karoly Lajthay (1885–1945) became an important figure in the Hungarian film industry during the 1910s. At times he was a writer (as for Átok vára in 1918 and Júlisa kisasszony in 1919), and on at least one occasion before Drakula halála he was a producer (for Tláni, az elvarázsolt hercegasszony in 1920). But the bulk of his credits were as director and as an actor; Lajthay used the screen name Charles Lederle in some thirteen Hungarian feature films (including Nászdal in 1917, which co-starred Bela Lugosi).