Continuity mistake: When Mina and Jonathan are dining with Van Helsing, in some shots, Mina's drinking glass is full, but in two shots facing Van Helsing, the glass can be seen in the lower right hand corner, and it is empty. (01:27:50)
Continuity mistake: When Van Helsing carves the steak at the restaurant, there is food on his plate, but in the next shot, his plate is empty. (01:27:55)
Continuity mistake: When Van Helsing is dining with Jonathan and Mina, as he asks Jonathan about the vampire women, he is holding his glass of ale up to his lips, but when the camera angle changes, his drinking glass appears at the bottom of the screen, back on the table. The camera cuts to another view of Van Helsing, where the glass is back in his hand as he downs his drink, emptying the glass; however, when Mina kisses Jonathan's cheek, the glass appears at the bottom of the screen and it is full again. (01:28:40)
Continuity mistake: When Mina is asleep in Dr. Seward's quarters, Dracula enters her bedchamber in the form of green mist. In the first shot, a black chair is sitting by the window, in front of Dr. Seward's wardrobe. When Mina is on the bed with Dracula, the chair is sitting directly beneath the window, next to the wardrobe (this is best seen when Dracula embraces Mina after they exchange blood). In the shot where Jonathan helps Mina out of the bed after the vampire hunters walks in on her and Dracula, the chair is once again sitting in front of the wardrobe. (01:35:30 - 01:42:45)
Continuity mistake: When Mina is with Dracula in Seward's room, as she says, "I must know. You must tell me.", her hair is behind her shoulders, but in the next shot, most of her hair is in front of her shoulders. (01:37:10)
Continuity mistake: After Dracula slits his chest so Mina can drink his blood, his hair alternates between being over/behind his shoulder, depending on the camera angle: In the shots facing Dracula, his hair is hanging over his shoulder, but in the shots from behind him, facing Mina, his hair is behind his back. (01:40:10)
Continuity mistake: When Mina begins drinking blood from Dracula's chest, as he stops her, her face and teeth are clean. Two shots later, before she continues drinking, there's blood on her chin and her teeth. (01:40:40)
Continuity mistake: When Van Helsing hypnotizes Mina, the candle he is holding changes throughout the scene: In the shots facing Van Helsing, long pieces of wax are sticking up from the top of the candle, while in the shots facing Mina, they're gone. (01:43:40)
Continuity mistake: When Jonathan is comforting Mina on the train, after Mina says, "Oh, what have I done to you", her head, resting against the couch, keeps moving up/down between different camera angles. (01:45:45)
Continuity mistake: After Van Helsing inspects Mina's teeth aboard the train, as Jonathan sits down next to her, his forehead is shining with sweat. After Mina says, "Oh, what have I done to you", his forehead is showing no signs of sweat. (01:46:35)
Continuity mistake: When Mina and Van Helsing are making camp in front of Dracula's castle, in the first shot, there is a bird's eye view of Van Helsing walking over to Mina with a bowl of food. In the next shot, he comes over with the food again. (01:49:13)
Continuity mistake: During the chase at the Borgo Pass, there are several shots of Dracula inside the wooden box, buried up to the neck in the earth of his homeland. However, when Dracula bursts out of the box outside the castle, the box falls apart completely, but hardly any earth falls out. (01:53:10 - 01:56:50)
Continuity mistake: In the last scene, when Mina Harker lays Dracula's body in the cathedral's altar, she kisses the vampire's lips and he turns into his human self. His face is covered with blood down from his nose, but after the kiss Mina's lips have no sign of blood. (01:58:45)
Answer: It's unlikely they were falling in love with Harker: they are sadistic, baby-eating monsters who regarded Harker as food and a temporary plaything. As for them sleeping in the open, the local populace dreads and avoids Dracula's castle, so there's hardly any fear of intruders. Van Helsing did enter and kill them, but they reckoned, mistakenly, that he too would be too afraid to do so, especially after their horse-mauling escapades the previous night.
Jukka Nurmi