Skip to main content

Dracula's Daughter (1936) - Lambert Hillyer

Trying to ride the popularity train of Tod Browning's 1931 film Dracula, Dracula's Daughter falls flat on its face. This movie is boring, dull and has nothing going for it. The stars of the movie include: Otto Kruger, Gloria Holden, Marguerite Chruchill, and Edward Von Sloan returning from Dracula to portray the character Van Helsing. The only passable actor would have to be Gloria Holden who plays Dracula's Daughter, Countess Marya Zaleska. 

This movie is canon to the original, set only moments after the first film ends. We see Van Helsing dealing with the police for driving a stake through the heart of a man known as Count Dracula. The police have no idea that he was a vampire and they think the entire idea is ludicrous; meanwhile Countess Marya Zaleska comes to London to destroy her fathers body and do what vampires do best. 

There are a ton of things that bother me about this flim. One being that the movie is set in London and none of the actors have British accents, the movie could have easily been set in New York or Chicago. The movie is not scary what-so-ever, virtually all of the vampire "biting" scenes are done off camera. The storyline seems forced, it seems like the screenwriter scribbled this down one lonely night after watching the original Dracula. I am glad Bela Lugosi kept himself away from the film altogether, it would have been a disaster...Well more so than it already was. 

The only thing that I like about this movie is the character Van Helsing and the subsequent investigation of his involvement in the murder Count Dracula. The movie is well shot and the dialog is delivered very well, albeit with no accents. 

Wanna see my jewels?


  • The movie was originally slated for James Whale (The Bride of Frankenstein, Old Dark House) to direct.
  • Bela Lugosi took promotional shots for the movie, however he doesn't appear in the movie at all.
  • This was one of Universals most expensive films of the thirties being made for $278,000.00

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Ju-On (2000) - Takashi Shimizu

Watching Japanese horror is similar to watching British comedy. If you enjoy dry whit then you probably enjoy the boys of Monty Python in drag. That's the joke, they're dressed like women. Get it? Well, that's British humor. But if you're like most Americans you probably prefer Adam Sandler farting his way across a football field and hooking up with chicks that are way out of his league. Americans usually prefer this more in your face, crass brand of humor. My point is funny in England is different from funny in the US. The same goes for J-Horror. What the Japanese consider scary is very different from what Americans consider scary and it shows in this horror film. Japanese horror is generally slow (a little too slow sometimes), suspenseful and creepy. Ju-On is a creepy effing film. The movie has almost no soundtrack. It is incredibly suspenseful and the pay-offs are pretty awesome, but I think that it was done better in the American version (cultural t...

Humanoids From the Deep (1980) - Barbara Peeters and Jimmy T. Murakami

This is your standard old drive-in Creature Feature that has tons of gore and boobs. It's great if your in for a cheap thrill. This film goes right up along side any Roger Corman produced picture from the eighties. It's rumored that Joe Dante was approached to direct this movie but he turned it down. Humanoids from the Deep, also known as Monster, is a strange but forgettable piece of exploitation that failed to make it's notch in history. Don't let that detour you though. This is a really fun little film that doesn't fail to be entertaining.  A small sea town in California is terrorized by some mutated creatures from the deep. They look like some sort of mutated fish, merman-thing. They seem to have one goal in mind and that is raping and impregnating the females of the town. Also the town is being taken for a ride by a shifty businessman and his new corporate cannery. Could this evil cannery corporation be responsible for the Extreme Creatures of the B...

Escape From Tomorrow (2013) - Randy Moore

This review may contain spoilers. An American independent horror movie from filmmaker Randy Moore. It stars Roy Abramsohn, Elena Schuber, Katelynn Rodriguez, Jack Dalton, Annet Mahendru, and Alison Lees-Taylor. It premiered at the official selection of Roger Ebert, at the Sundance Film Festival on January 18th, 2013. Synopsis Jim is a depressed middle-aged man that despises his family life but wants to try to hold it together for a vacation to the Walt Disney World Resort. Jim receives a call before they leave and, unfortunately, Jim has lost his job as well. It proves too much to handle as this trip to the Magic Kingdom becomes a hellish nightmare. Jim’s mind cracks as we watch him deal with Disney’s seedy underbelly. Complete with elaborate corporate conspiracy, undercover sex workers, and demons. Oh and two very young French girls that Jim lusts over. It’s gross. Analysis The acting is amateurish. It’s nothing that’s going to win any awards or anything. The wri...