Yeah. I hear ya. That’s a Hammer film. It has a gothic castle. It has really beautiful women in the lead. It has Peter Cushing for goodness’s sake! It’s a Hammer film.
True. But it is also a Universal film. That’s the logo at the top of the flick (Universal distributed many, if not all, of Hammer’s classic monster output) so I am calling it.
I watched Brides of Dracula on Svengoolie on Me-TV that was lurking on my DVR for literal years. I guess I have always been mixed on Hammer films, because they are nostalgic, but I always found the original Drac and Frankenstein much more charming. Hammer was always attempting to be “gritty” with the most gorgeous color ever committed to film. Just look at those reds pop!
This was Hammer’s second vampire movie. It was a followup to the classic “Horror of Dracula” which featured Christopher Lee as the Count. In this one, Peter Cushing reprises his role as the great vampire killer, Van Helsing.
Also returning is Terence Fisher who was responsible for many of the top Hammer horror films and gave up his career concurrently with the fall of the house of Hammer.
Freda Jackson steals most of the scenes she is in as the deranged mortal protector of our fanged friends. This is where I change gears….
Yvonne Monlaur, as the our female lead, is a very beautiful woman…and not much else. If she didn’t fill out a shirt so well, I’d declare her an empty one. No fire or life is in her performance. And how can we get behind her…she causes this whole mess! After warnings from the townfolk and the mistress of the castle (who lets her stay the night for free in her magnificent home), she still stupidly releases David Peel, the vampire, Baron Meinster.
Now, the Baron is a bore. Peel appears to have mainly been a TV actor. In this flick….he’s mainly absent. Now, that’s fine since Peter Cushing is the real draw of the piece, but when your female lead (who has no sparks with Van Helsing as per usual) and your antagonist literally just lie there, that’s a problem with your film.
In fact, all the scares come from the fetching Andree Melly, who is beautiful…until she flashes that fangy smile. Those fangs, alone, change the entire shape of her face along with her emoting makes her from beauty to beast in the speed of a smile.
The flick features the usual uber-red gore of Hammer and an exciting final reel, but the middle act is a crashing bore. It’s here where you really miss Christopher Lee. Lee was, of course, killed off in the last Dracula film, but apparently was offered the role. Lee declined because he didn’t want to get typecast. Can you say….too late? It was even then! He returned to the role naturally and if I remember correctly played Dracula more often than any other actor.
What’s odd about this slow second act is that’s when Van Helsing/Cushing shows up. You are already a third into the movie before he shows himself. Unfortunately, as good as Cushing is, this is also the point where they decide to TELL the story instead of SHOW the story. The whole proceedings crash to a grinding halt.
To add to it, the worst flying bat prop you have ever seen shows up about halfway through the film. I mean, you have a better bat prop that you bought at Halloween Express for $5 last October. This is on top of the previous Hammer vampire entry scoffed vampire transformations into animals to try to give the vampire a more “realistic” feel. Well, one flappy, flappy and that was gone.
The staking scenes are top notch, as you would expect from Hammer. The showdown between the Baron and Van Helsing, which dominates much of the final reel of the film, has many great touches and worth sitting through the seven years in the wilderness you get in the middle of the flick.
This is where watching this on Svengoolie or a similar show can really help. At least you have the break in’s to wait for!
A decent, if not my favorite, vampire entry in the house of Hammer and worth a viewing the next time it comes on Me-TV or watch it on Prime today!
