[HorrorScience] Dracula's Daughter (1936)

Reading time: 6 minutes

Qualification

Dracula's Daughter

Year

1936

Duration

71 minutes

Director

Lambert Hillyer

Distribution

Gloria Holden, Otto Kruger, Marguerite Churchill, Edward Van Sloan, Gilbert Emery, Irving Pichel, Halliwell Hobbes, Billy Bevan, Nan Grey, Hedda Hopper, Claud Allister, Edgar Norton, E. E. Clive, Vernon Steele

Script

David O. Selznick, Garrett Fort, John L. Balderston, Kurt Neumann, Charles Belden, Finley Peter Dunne, R.C. Sheriff

For decades, Universal Pictures created a large number of films with classic monsters as protagonists, the success of the films and the company's insistence caused most of them to become popular icons known as “Universal Monsters”.

There is no exact logic as to what is or is not a Universal Monster., since that name was made for advertising purposes, but it generally includes the most famous monsters that starred in more than one film (Dracula, Frankenstein's monster, the werewolf, the creature from the black lagoon) although it also includes Frankenstein's bride, a tremendously popular character despite having appeared in one movie for less than 5 minutes.

The Bride of Frankenstein is one of the few female monsters that seems to remain in the memory of the public, who ignores other great women of classic horror, the most affected being the bipolar and sinister Countess Marya Zaleska, protagonist of the film that I will comment on below.

Dracula's daughter (Dracula's Daughter) starts with two police officers arresting Van Helsing for the murder of Count Dracula. Faced with the imminent sentence that is going to fall on him for admitting the crime, Van Helsing asks for help from a psychologist friend of his named Jeffrey Garth to be his defense at the trial.

Meanwhile, at the police station where the corpses of Dracula and his lackey Renfield are kept, a strange woman appears who hypnotizes the guard and steals the Count's body with the intention of burning it and performing a ritual so that his threat disappears. That woman is Countess Zaleska, the daughter of Dracula, who After the death of the eldest vampire, he seeks to be free from his curse. and have a normal life. Every night, the Countess suffers a strong need for blood, which she satisfies with men and women alike. The victims are usually seduced by the Countess herself or persuaded by her assistant, the sinister Sandor, a normal human at the service of the vampire.

[HorrorScience] Dracula's Daughter (1936) — Zaleska doing the ritual to eliminate Dracula once and for all

For his part, Van Helsing tells Jeffrey Garth everything he knows about vampirism, without getting his former student to believe anything he says. However, Garth's loyalty will make him decide to investigate further. Due to one of those coincidences in life, Jeffrey meets Countess Zaleska, who will become interested in the psychologist, because She believes he can free her from her curse..

The vampire's victims continue to increase and it is a matter of time before they one day discover who is responsible, so the Countess decides to force Jeffrey to accompany her to Transylvania, not to cure her of her condition, but to accompany her for all eternity as another vampire. Will Garth escape from the Countess?

Dracula's Daughter It is a relatively risky film despite starting (more or less) where the previous film ended. The easy thing would have been to make a second part with Dracula, but instead they eliminate the vampire and They give us a new character, less charismatic, but much more sinister and three-dimensional.. Gloria Holden plays a good role, because for some reason she is very sinister in many of the scenes. The fact that she wants to get rid of her curse, but then completely succumbs to it makes her quite interesting, you can practically see when her face stops being that of Countess Zaleska and becomes Dracula's daughter.

In Dracula (1931), the Count had the crazy Renfield as an assistant and in a way that character (thanks to Dwight Frye's performance) was one of the best things in the movie. In this sequel we have a similar case, the Countess's henchman, Sandor, is very disturbing and sinister, he does not seem to be crazy like Renfield, but his monotone voice, his strange appearance and his dire dialogues make him very striking and give credibility to the fact that he wants to be a vampire.

The rest of the characters are not that interesting. Van Helsing is correct but appears little; Garth is intelligent, but he has more humorous scenes with his secretary than any other guy, and the police, well, do what they can.

The film is not bad, in fact, it is quite good, but there are many scenes that do not convey the terrifying atmosphere that this film needs and that makes it lose many points. Fortunately, the final part takes us to Transylvania, allowing us to once again find ourselves involved in the castle full of cobwebs from the first part, although unfortunately the end of the film is somewhat abrupt and forced. In some ways, the film seems as bipolar as Zaleska herself.

Curiosities of this movie.

Due to the success of Bride of Frankenstein, this film was going to be directed by James Whale, but that was not the case.
Gloria Holden feared being pigeonholed into the role of vampire, which is why she did not play a similar role again or appear in films of this style.
There was some uproar over alleged lesbianism due to the scenes in which the Countess seduces and attacks women.
Initially Dracula (played again by Bela Lugosi) was going to have an important role in the film, for some reason they decided to eliminate his participation.