‘Only God has no fear...’
It’s possible that The Brides of Dracula is the most misleading film title of all time. I’m sorry to report, dear reader, that the damned thing doesn’t feature Dracula or any of his brides. Nor is the main antagonist a woman at all…
French school teacher, Marianne (Yvonne Monlaur) is abandoned in a Transylvanian village inn and foolishly agrees to spend the night in an old castle at the behest of Baroness Meinster, an associate of our old pal Count Dracula (Christopher Lee declined to appear for fear of being typecast). Upon arrival, Marianne discovers the Baroness’s son chained to the wall and duly releases him, but obviously he’s only a bloody vampire isn’t he. Enter Van Helsing (Peter Cushing), the only connective tissue between this movie and the 1958 original, and the only reason to bother watching The Brides of Dracula at all.
Terence Fisher’s film starts off great. The vivid reds and blacks that define the Hammer Dracula movies combine beautifully with the sinister, Caligari-esque set design, and any film that starts in a Transylvanian drinking den is fine by me. The second half of the film feels like a bland retread of the first film, however, with Cushing looking severe in various old-fashioned looking rooms while the occasional unfortunate villager is dispatched by a vampire. Luckily, the death of the vampire at the film’s conclusion is visually stunning and more inventive than the death of Dracula in his first outing. Sure, it doesn’t hold up to any kind of logical scrutiny, but I don’t believe this to be a requirement from a film entitled The Brides of Dracula.
This first sequel joins the likes of Halloween III: Season of the Witch and Friday the 13th: A New Beginning as a franchise entry about a notable horror villain that doesn’t actually feature said villain at all – an ambitious but ultimately pretty pedestrian Dracula sequel.
