Too much of everything

Memorable, crazy movie

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

It's complicated... I really like the directing, acting and writing but, there are issues with the way it's shot that I just can't deny. As much as I love the storytelling and the fantastic performance but, there are also certain scenes that didn't need to exist.

Bram Stoker's novel "Dracula" is a rich text, which has retained interest even in a bare-bones adaptation such as Hammer's 1958 film, which succeeds largely because it cuts so much from the long book to create an exciting pacing. Plus, it had red blood and sex appeal--two things lacking from prior Dracula films. So, at least, it was a well-paced action shocker. That's not the case with this, the misnamed "The Brides of Dracula," the first of what would be eight sequels to the '58 "Dracula." Like Universal before them, which released the dull "Dracula's Daughter" (1936) after its successful 1931 adaptation, Hammer follows up its own success with a dud. In both cases, the studio writers weren't up to the task of following in the footsteps of Stoker.There's no sex appeal here despite the hints of incest and homosexuality offered by the vampires' victims. Even "Dracula's Daughter" did better in this regard. There's little blood and, for most of the runtime, no action. There's also no Dracula, nor brides of him. It's over half an hour into the film before Peter Cushing's Van Helsing appears; in the meantime, we're left with an uninteresting, unknowing female lead. There's some mystery in the beginning as to who's a vampire. There's a man who steals a ride on a carriage whose character is never adequately explained; supposedly, he hunted victims for the vampire. We later find out the second and younger of the two mystery men is the main antagonist and vampire of the story--a boyish and entirely lackluster heir to Christopher Lee. Also unlike the '58 original, which was somewhat ambiguous as to its location, "The Brides of Dracula" is firmly set in Transylvania, which is unfortunate because most of the cast is populated with Brits, including some stupid comic relief that exemplifies that British strand of humor based on class and regional accents.Cushing's Sherlock Holmes-type Van Helsing lacks his Watson (the Arthur character in the '58 film) this outing, which might be part of the reason his process of vampire hunting seems much duller than before. A local priest briefly fills this void, though. Plus, it's nearly 50 minutes into the thing before Van Helsing encounters any danger--a female vampire raising a hand from the grave despite an obvious continuity error where she opens her unbroken coffin afterwards and from a laughably shallow burial (it takes a very weak person, let alone a vampire, to struggle to emerge from that dust heap). There are a couple more action bits after this between Van Helsing and kid-vamp Baron Meinster. In these incidents, this sequel adds a bunch of new vampiric folklore to the series. Apparently, one can burn off the bite marks of vampires, thus avoiding turning into one themselves. Holy water is like acid to vampire faces. Vampire brides stand by mute and motionless when their master is getting his butt kicked by a vampire slayer and, presumably, helplessly burn to death in a windmill while humans have the gumption to make an exit. And, you can create a makeshift cross out of just about anything--even the shadow of a windmill turned at just the right angle can do the job. Hammer's vampires are wimps.(Mirror Note: On the plus side, this film does have the best mirror shot in Hammer's Dracula series: an unbroken moving-camera mirror shot not revealing the Baron's entrance through the mirror due to his lack of reflection, but behind the Gina character, as the camera moves away from the mirror.)

Solid Hammer Horror follow-up to their first Dracula picture, "Horror of Dracula." Christopher Lee is sadly absent from this sequel, but Peter Cushing is back as Professor Van Helsing. Instead of fighting Count Dracula, Van Helsing fights Dracula's many "brides" and his disciple Baron Meinster. Directed by Hammer regular Terence Fisher, he brings plenty of spooky atmosphere to the picture, as well as Hammer's usual dose of blood and heaving bosoms. SPOILER ALERT! I did quite enjoy the film's finale where The Count's disciple is killed by the shadow of a windmill that forms a cross, which was a terrific visual and also something of a nice nod to the finale of the original Universal version of "Frankenstein."

The Brides of Dracula, it may surprise first time viewers to know, is notable for the absence of Christopher Lee, and much speculation has ensued as to why he didn't recreate his most famous role. Lee himself always claimed he was never offered a chance to appear; but it's possible that Hammer, having focused on the Baron in their Frankenstein pictures, decided to focus on Van Helsing in its vampire ones - a perfectly logical choice as they considered Peter Cushing their star name.Whatever the reason, this is a terrific movie, with only its episodic script reducing its effectiveness. Beautifully photographed by Jack Asher in his last Hammer Horror movie; superbly directed by Terence Fisher. And of course, Peter Cushing himself on top form.David Peel makes an excellent vampire nemesis for Cushing's Helsing, and in an opening prologue is set free by Marianne Daniel (Yvonne Monlaur) - a finishing school teacher on her way to a new job. It's strongly implied that the Baroness Meinster (a wonderfully icy yet ultimately sympathetic Martita Hunt) has offered her shelter merely in order to satisfy her son's blood-lust. In a rather kinky touch once loose Peel's first victim is his own mother!Enter Van Helsing, and from here Peter Cushing's authoritative performance totally dominates the movie. We get a stylish fight between Van Helsing and Meinster, a brilliant sequence where faithful servant Greta (Freda Jackson) coaxes a new-born vampire from the grave, and the classic scene where the locks fall off a coffin as Marianne watches over it. Only the rather comical bat disrupts enjoyment, prompting laughs rather than terror.All told, this is brilliant Hammer Horror, Cushing himself is vampirised towards the end and in a gruelling sequence, burns the bite from his neck with a red hot branding iron. Startling stuff at the time and still effective today.

I have to agree with those who point out that this movie was probably put out as Saturday matinée or drive-in material. As someone who was a kid in that era, I'll go out on a limb here and say that it was the "daring-do" that appealed to most kids of the era, and the good guys winning over the bad ones. You went to the movie to be entertained. The target audience of this movie wasn't going to sit there and analyze every scene and all the set decor, and the Hammer crew knew that. They knew most people weren't experts on European architecture, so their representation of castles and inns were pretty rudimentary in some ways. They went about trying to create a relatively believable world in which to tell their story, and as far as I am concerned they did a pretty good job. So, it is a good idea to remember that when looking at this movie through 21st century eyes.One thing I'd like to address is the fact that so many reviews have people criticizing the movie because the vampire, Baron Meinster, is being held captive by shackles when he should have been able to just turn into a bat and escape. However, there is some folk lore where iron can be used to repel or incapacitate a vampire, and I expect that is what is being implied here. Also, vampires being "super beings" is also really a modern idea, so I think the criticism of Van Helsing holding his own against Meinster is also unfair.I believe that the story here is pretty straightforward. You have the decent young lady traveling to a school for other younger ladies to become an instructor there. Since she's traveling alone, she probably is supposed to be without any family, since that is something that would have been realistic at the time-since respectable families wouldn't let their female members travel alone because of safety concerns. Also, there's been criticism about the guy who shows up, pays the driver, and then disappears. I think we can logically deduce that this guy is on the Baroness' payroll to watch the roads, and if a vulnerable young lady(as in, alone)is spotted in a coach, then he pays the coachman to abandon the girl at the local inn. Then the Baroness shows up and offers the young lady lodging for the night. Hey, the local aristocracy shows up and offers you a stay in their elegant castle. How many people would turn that down? Of course, the young lady, Marianne, never realizes that the Baroness intended for her to be her vampire son's next meal. Instead, Marianne is enticed through her own curiosity to see just exactly what the weird deal is with the son, and then is tricked by him into helping him escape. She soon learns what a big mistake that is, and then all heck breaks loose until the hero, Van Helsing, shows up and saves the heroine, vanquishes they enemy, and makes everything okay.I'm not going to give a play by play of the movie, as there are plenty reviews here that do that. I do think that David Peel made a convincing and very menacing villain. Once Marianne was duped into helping him escape, it didn't take long to see that the fear in his mother's eyes was totally justified. That was one cold-hearted dude.I enjoyed the action scenes in this movie. I thought that Cushing and Peel were very convincing as antagonists determined to destroy one another.The ending is another thing that gets criticized. According to an interview I read by the director, Terence Fisher, the idea was that the "truth" of the cross was just as effective as a physical crucifix. This of course, is based on the Christian doctrine that, as a result of Christ's supernatural sacrifice by dying by crucifixion, all things on earth are subject to his spiritual authority-especially evil spirits or beings controlled by evil spirits. So, when Van Helsing twisted the windmill sails to resemble a cross, Meinster died from divine retribution, since Van Helsing was basically calling upon Christ to deliver them by invoking the symbolism of the cross. The character did the same thing in The Horror of Dracula, by using two candlesticks in the shape of a cross-though in that case it just slowed Dracula down. There is a later Dracula movie where someone also uses objects to form a cross, but I can't recall which one at the moment.This is a good movie, and one I think can be enjoyable if you just let yourself enter into world they create and let them tell you a story, with no other expectations. Yes, it's a product of it's time, but I think even now it still can entertain on the level that it was created to entertain on.