Jesus Franco's Count Dracula (1970)

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nTitle: Jesus Franco’s Count Dracula (1970)

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nDirector: Jesus Franco

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nCast: Christopher Lee, Klaus Kinski, Herbert Lom, SoledadnMiranda

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nWhen you read about Christopher Lee’s work on the Hammer Draculanfilms, you get the idea that he didn’t really like working on them, from hisncomments and reactions, you get the impression that he was never really happynwith the final product. Lee’s main concern was that none of the films he madenwith Hammer were faithful adaptations of Bram Stokers book. He’s also gone downnas saying that the dialog written for him was so atrocious that he refused tonsay the lines. Still, he went on to play the character on countless occasions fornHammer films. But for all his bitchin’ and moaning about these films, I thinknhe is the best Dracula ever and I also think most of those Hammer films werenexcellent horror films; save for Dracula 1972 A.D. (1972) which I think was anfailed attempt to bring Dracula to the modern age; but all other Hammer Draculanfilms? Pretty much exquisite for me, I love the old school atmosphere in them.

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nOut of all thosenHammer Dracula films, the only one to attempt an adaptation of Stoker’s booknwas the first one they ever made: Horror of Dracula (1958), starringnChristopher Lee as Dracula and Peter Cushing as Dr. Van Helsing. For all itsntwists and turns with Stokers story, Horror of Dracula ended up being a decentnadaptation of the book, it hits all the important moments and the resultingnfilm was a truly effective horror film, with some really memorable images.  All other Hammer Dracula films played within thenuniverse that Stoker created, but never tried to be an adaptation of the book,nthey were kind of like sequels that played with the idea of Dracula coming backnfrom the dead, in every single film! But  what Christopher Lee always wanted was to be anpart of a truly faithful adaptation of Dracula, so when Spaniard filmmaker JesusnFranco proposed the idea of making a Dracula film that was faithful to thenbook, Lee accepted. How did it turn out? Was it as faithful as Franco promised?

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nIn my opinion, this Jesus Franco version of Dracula deviatesnjust as much as any other version of Dracula, but with one added ingredient: boredom.nI don’t know what it is about Jesus Franco’s style of filmmaking, but I justnfind his films to be incredibly dull. This was my main problem with this film,nand by the way, many other Jesus Franco films suffer from this ailment; checknout Oasis of the Zombies (1983) if you don’t believe me. I mean, here are filmsnwith premises that beg for something interesting to be made yet end up beingnboring anyways, and I chalk it all up to Jesus Franco’s style of storytelling.nHere’s an example. The good guys open up a coffin to kill Dracula’s vampirenbrides, the brides see the good guys holding a stake and a hammer up in the airnand what do they do? Do they fight their way out of the coffin? Do they fightnfor their lives? I mean, can’t they see that someone is about to put a woodennstake through their hearts? Apparently not, because all they do is lay there innthe most peaceful manner, waiting to be hammered to death. I mean, Franco justndidn’t bother doing something exciting or interesting. Now, I can take a slownpaced movie, for example, I enjoy Jean Rollin’s vampire films because evennthough they are slow paced, they compensate with the beautiful imagery, thencomposition of the shots, the visual poetry or the shocking proceedings. Butnnot so with a Jesus Franco film, well, at least this particular one which crawlednat a snail’s pace.

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nI compare Jesus Franco to Jean Rollin because they both havena similar ways of making films: they both shoot in real locations, they verynrarely use sets, they’ve both dabbled in porn and they are used to working withnmodest budgets. Actually, they even worked together on some films, but wherenRollin surpasses Franco is in the sheer artistry he infuses his films with, hencan make a low budget film look better simply because of the way he composes anshot. Franco is just dull, dull, dull. I’ve yet to see more Jesus Franco films,nbut so far, he hasn’t impressed me much. This is not to say that this Draculanfilm is a total waste of your time. I did like the fact that they shot a lot ofnthe film in real castles, the cast is actually pretty impressive. What kept menwatching this one till the end was my interest in seeing what twists and turnsnFranco would bring to his version of Dracula because this is the one delight ofnwatching the same tale told by a different director, each gives their filmntheir own flavor. Sadly, one of the things that distinguishes this version isnhow cheap it looks. For example, there is this one set they built in whichnReinfeld is held captive, that is supposed to look like a padded cell in anlooney bin, but I swear to god it looks like they made it with cardboard paper;ncompletely unconvincing. You can have Klaus Kinski giving it his all as ansilent version of Reinfeld, but the fake padded cell takes you out of thenmovie! Sorry!

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nOn the dvd features Jesus Franco says he doesn’t like thenHammer Draculas because “they didn’t take the subject matter seriously” but howncan he say that when his film is filled with paper cut outs of bats hangingnfrom strings to give us the “illusion” of flying vampire bats? I truly hatenthis about old vampire films, when they use the fake bat hanging from thenstrings trick, it just looks too freaking nfake! Even for a low budget movie, this is inexcusable for me! Arrrgh!nAnd Franco uses that cheap trick so much on this film. It’s so lazy, sonunconvincing, this was yet another element that completely took me out of thenmovie. Sure Christopher Lee can deliver a good performance as Count Dracula, henplays it really serious for the most part, but then that seriousness fades awaynwhen he transforms into a fake bat hanging from strings. It’s kind of insultingnto have these actors delivering their lines with such candor, and then havingncheap sets or cheap props. Here’s another example: there’s this scene where thengood guys throw this giant bolder at Dracula’s coffin, when it hits the groundnyou can just tell the rock is made of paper mache or something! It’s actuallynkind of hilarious, unfortunately, it breaks the illusion.

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nOn to the cast which is good. Too bad they couldn’t be in anbetter production! Christopher Lee has got his Dracula performance down flat,nby the time he did this one; he’d already played Dracula around three times fornHammer! The one thing that is different about this Dracula is that he speaks anwhole lot more than on any Hammer film. I’m guessing he agreed to say the linesnbecause they are taken mostly directly from the book, a luxury he never hadnwith the Hammer films. Klaus Kinski plays Reinfeld, which is kind ofnappropriate considering Kinski was apparently, according to Franco and alsonaccording to German director Werner Herzog, truly insane. So it was fitting henplayed the bloodthirsty, and demented Reinfeld. The strange thing about thisnversion of Reinfeld is that he played it completely silent! So on this film wenget a talkative Christopher Lee but a silent Reinfeld! How ‘bout that! Finally,nthe other stand out performance was Herbert Lom as Professor Van Helsing, hendelivers, what is in my opinion the most solid performance in the whole movie.nToo bad they are all in such a dull movie, there’s no tension on this thing!nAnd save for a few minutes in the opening where Dracula picks up JonathannHarker at Burgo Pass, there’s not much atmosphere on this one! It’s a Draculanmovie sans atmosphere! Sans horror! Sans all the things that matter in anDracula movie; so I guess now I know why this film is not as popular as all thenother Dracula adaptations. It’s just not very engaging. It hits all thenimportant beats required of a Dracula adaptation, only in a really dull manner,nso if you want to venture into this particular version of Dracula, just benready for a slow paced film.

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nRating: 3 out of 5      

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