Film Review
The penultimate entry in Universal's compendium of gothic horror flicks
repeats the winning formula of the previous film in the series,
House of Frankenstein (1944),
reuniting its three most popular monsters - Dracula, the Frankenstein
monster and the Wolfman - for another fun-filled horror
fest. The three monsters would endure one more reunion for
Universal, in
Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein
(1948), but that be would mainly for laughs, not chills.
House of Dracula is often
written off as one of the weakest of the Universal horror films,
although its production standards are on a par with those of the
preceding films, the performances are by no means bad and Erle C.
Kenton's direction is effective at building the suspense and delivering
the thrills at just the right moments. There are also some
stylish expressionistic touches - some atmospheric photography that is
highly redolent of German expressionism and a creepy dream sequence
which includes excerpts from some of Universal's previous Frankenstein
films.
Where the film falls down is its plot, which stretches credibility so
far that the spectator really has no option but to disengage his logic circuits
if he wants to avoid a life-threatening cerebral overload. It is quite something
when the plot contrivances become even more shocking than the monsters
portrayed in the film. For example: Edelmann follows the wolfman
into a cave and within a minute they find Frankenstein's monster lying
on the floor. "Oh look, it's Frankenstein's monster", says the
Wolfman casually, as if it were the kind of thing that happened to him
every day. "I know," thinks Edelmann, "I'll take it back
to my laboratory and wire him up to the mains, so that, in the highly
improbable event that I become a bit mad and want to destroy the world,
I can reanimate him." Of course, Edelmann then goes mad and does precisely that.
There's a poetry somewhere in this sheer undiluted lunacy.
Silly as the film undoubtedly is, and this is a film that elevates
silliness to a fine art,
House of
Dracula still manages to be eminently watchable and it is easily
one of the more entertaining of Universal's classic horror
films. As if the combined monstrosity of Dracula,
Wolfman, and Frankenstein's monster isn't enough, we are also offered a
hunchbacked nurse and a variant on the Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
story. As the mad scientist (who is clearly related to Fritz
Lang's Dr Mabuse), Onslow Stevens steals the show, delivering far more
thrills than the anaemic Dracula and his jaded monstrous entourage.
This is a film which ought to be unremittingly awful but it
isn't. It may not scale the heights of Universal's other
great monster movies of the 1930s and '40s, but it is still an
enjoyable, well-crafted horror romp, marred only by its unimaginably
daft plot. After this, it would be a decade before Dracula and company
returned to chill the blood of cinema audiences - courtesy of a little
known British company named Hammer Films...
© James Travers 2009
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Film Synopsis
One evening, the eminent surgeon Dr Edelmann receives an unexpected
visit from Count Dracula who is desperately seeking a cure for his
vampirism. Whilst Edelmann begins treating Dracula through a
course of blood transfusions, he receives another visitor, Larry
Talbot, a man who has an unfortunate habit of turning into a wolf
whenever there is a full moon. Fearing that there is no hope for
him, Talbot attempts to kill himself by jumping into the sea.
Edelmann goes after him and finds him unharmed in the caves beneath his
old house, along with the inert Frankenstein monster. Edelmann
believes he has the solution to Talbot's condition: brain surgery using
a special fungus that he has been cultivating to heal his hunchbacked
assistant. When Dracula proves resistant to Edelmann's treatment
and begins menacing his nurse, the good doctor has no choice but to
destroy him. Unfortunately, he has become infected with Dracula's
blood and periodically he undergoes a change into a homicidal
madman. Although Edelmann succeeds in curing Talbot, his
own condition worsens and, in his deranged state, he decides to revive
the Frankenstein monster...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.