Rating: 2.5/5
Cult Movie Challenge 2016 | 32/52 | Jesús Franco
CW // Blood, Murder, Mental Illness, Misogyny, Assault
Jonathan Harker boards a train to Bistritz. He chats with a fellow on the train, telling him that he’s a lawyer who is seeing one of his firm’s clients, Count Dracula.
My dear sir, may God preserve you because if you go to visit Count Dracula, you may need God's help.
A carriage brings Jonathan from the station to an inn that the Count secured for him. During the night, while he tosses and turns in his bed, the innkeeper’s wife comes to Jonathan with a warning.
Tomorrow is St. George's night. When the clock strikes midnight, all the evils of the world circle around us.
The following day, everyone looks at Jonathan strangely. They know his destination.
From here, the story follows Bram Stoker’s novel rather faithfully. The primary difference is that, in this movie, Dracula starts older and gets younger when he drinks blood.
The mood is dreadful, almost to a cartoonish degree. You could convince me this is a parody if it weren’t so slow.
The sets are gothic, albeit sparse in detail. The cobwebs are so intense that they seem to fall into food on the table — every nook and cranny has them.
The vampire women arising from their graves have a haunting quality, the way their bodies turn from translucent to corporal. But from there, it loses that feeling and returns to book recitation.
With Jesús Franco and Klaus Kinski involved you’d think this would be hornier. At least Christopher Lee gives us some furrowed brow dramatics.
The stuffed animals coming alive is hysterical.
I don’t mind a doggedly faithful adaptation of Dracula, even though I’ve seen a dozen. But I would be lying if I said I liked this a lot.