The Brides of Dracula (1960) - film review

Count Dracula may have been destroyed but his legacy of vampiric evil endures, lingering like a poisonous cloud of death over the bleak Transylvanian landscape.   Marianne Danielle, a young French schoolteacher, knows nothing of this and makes the journey to the girls’ school where she it to take up her new post in blissful ignorance of the dangers that surround her.   When her coach driver abandons her at a village inn, she gratefully accepts an invitation from the aged Baroness Meinster to spend the night at her castle.  Marianne is appalled when she learns that the Baroness keeps her son chained up in his room and sets about finding the key that will release him.  What she doesn’t know is that, far from being an innocent captive, Baron Meinster is a blood-hungry vampire who has been kept alive by titbits fed to him by his mother. Once freed, the Baron wastes no time seeking out his next victim, a girl in the village.  With the help of a passing vampire hunter, Dr. Van Helsing, Marianne manages to reach her school unharmed. A short while later, Marianne is visited by Baron Meinster and is delighted when he asks her to marry him...

Although Hammer’s production of Dracula (1958) had been a huge box office hit, the company (like Universal before them) were strangely reluctant to embark on an immediate sequel.  Hammer may have been unwilling to put all their eggs into one basket (although this is ultimately what happened), but the company may also have been deterred by a spate of similar vampire-themed movies released by its competitors.  When Hammer did decide to make a sequel, Christopher Lee, the actor who had played the part of the vampiric Count so successfully, refused categorically to have anything to do with it.  Lee was so associated with the part of Dracula that it would have been too big a risk to replace him with another actor.  So (just as in the case of Universal in the mid-1930s), Hammer faced the challenge of making a sequel to their first Dracula film without Dracula actually appearing in it. 

Hammer were still able to count (no pun intended) on the services of Peter Cushing, whose authoritative portrayal of Dr Van Helsing had contributed as much to the success of Dracula as Christopher Lee’s majestic vampire turn.  Terence Fisher, who had directed that film with such aplomb, was enthusiastic about making a sequel, and Hammer’s crew of technicians could be relied upon to make a prestige-looking production on a modest budget.  The only headache was the screenplay, which had to go through numerous rewrites by several different writers.  It is little wonder that the film’s plot is a tangled mess which only just holds together. 

The deficiencies in the script are remarkably easy to overlook, given the strengths of the film in other areas.  With its slick design, sumptuous sets and well-staged action scenes, The Brides of Dracula stands as one of Hammer’s most visually impressive Gothic horror offerings.  Jack Asher’s cinematography makes it appear a far more lavish production that it was and brings a sinister brooding menace to almost every scene.  Peter Cushing commands such authority that you never doubt the danger posed by the vampiric Baron Meinster, even if David Peel’s portrayal lacks the subtle terror of Lee’s Dracula.  

Martita Hunt is much more sinister as the Baron’s creepy mother, a part that calls to mind her best-known role, Miss Havisham in David Lean’s Great Expectations (1946).  Freda Jackson hits just the right note of unbridled lunacy in her all-too brief appearance as the overly enthusiastic housekeeper.   It is a pity that actress Yvonne Monlaur looks as if she is starring in a naughty French comedy, since her obvious insouchiance does diminish the fear quotient somewhat.  (Having said that, it might have been a nice twist if the vampire protagonists were all slain by a lethal burst of Gallic indifference.)

The familiar motifs from Stoker’s original Dracula novel and vampire folklore are ingeniously re-used (the sails of a windmill providing an improvised crucifix, for example).  There is much more explicit horror that in the first Dracula film (and almost as much explicit comedy).  Here we not only get to see a vampire impaled, but we are also treated to the sight of Van Helsing cauterising a vampire bite on his neck with a red hot poker.  In fact, there are so many thrills and shocks that you hardly notice Christopher Lee’s absence at all.  Of course, Lee would return to resurrect his most famous creation six years later, in Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966), kicking off a new cycle of Dracula films that would ultimately have Bram Stoker spinning in his grave.

© Alex Sullivan 2010

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