Saturday 23 July 2016

The Brides of Drakula

Ah, with no Dracula, they go for the female hanger-ons. Only they aren't really his brides?

A lady is travelling to a ladies school, but her journey is interrupted as she ends up at the Baron Meinster's castle, and helps him escape his trap. He turns up to be a vampire, and turns his mother, and also grabs some other young women to be his playthings. The lady, meanwhile, happens to run into Van Helsing, get to the school, become the Baron's finance, and nearly get burnt. A fun time for all. But eventually the Baron is defeated by a very convenient windmill.

The main part of the movie is quite good. Yvonne Monlaur and David Peel make for extremely attractive leads, and both have very charismatic presences. Again there are some great looking sets, and again the main feature is people running through them.

The ending... is quite disappointing. The windmill blades form a useful shape, with shorter cross beams to make the cross, and the Baron just wilts. Er, really? Presumably then vampires could be stopped by simply making a cross with your own crossed fingers, that would do. Earlier in the movie, he could still move around even in the presence of the cross, but now the Baron just sits down and done. Meh.

Good looking film, the story doesn't quite work.

[END]

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Nice!
I like this one mainly for 'action Cushing', (Could Hugh Jackman have cauterised his own vampire bite - I think not!) but sorely miss Christopher Lee. To be fair, the Baron did get a face full of corrosive holy water at the climax and already seems pretty munted, so maybe the windmill shadow just finishes him off?