Mini-Review: Dracula – Prisoner of Frankenstein (1972)

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Dir. Jess Franco

France-Spain

For a B-movie, it’s amazing to see how more economic and more watchable it is when it removes all the perceived requirements of a horror movie that usually hampers it. The first conversation between two characters takes place, in the eighty minute film, at fifty nine minutes, in vast contrast to a genre which is usually full of tedious character dialogue. Exposition is kept to an extreme minimum and it’s all about the images. Wide eyes heightened by makeup and prosthetics. Rubber bat abuse. Erratic camera zooms and female vampires. Times in Dracula: Prisoner Of Frankenstein I drifted off but I was not bored. Instead I found myself catching up with going on after this happened and finding myself gleefully pleased by the fact this happened. Dr Frankenstein (Dennis Price) and his hunchback assistant take over the castle towering a small village only to find the remains of Dracula (Howard Vernon, fake grey makeup, but with the look and bugged-out eyes perfect for a more corpse-like, mute Dracula). Resurrecting him, Frankenstein intends to use him and his turned victims, alongside his own Frankenstein creation, to start his own army of creatures to dominate the world. He now has to deal with Dracula’s arch enemy, a doctor (Alberto Dalbés) and the female clairvoyant who, almost catatonic, he uses to detect the evil beings.

The story is simple. It is stretched out for the whole of the film, languid and slow paced, with the main story only starting proper halfway through. But instead of padded, unbearable dialogue, which sadly can be found in Jess Franco’s own The Bloody Judge (1970), and like that film, ultimately uninteresting plotting, this one instead reveals in the material in what it shows onscreen. It comes off like a silent film in tone in how it, unlike many other movies, managing to convey its story economically through the images themselves and atmosphere. It’s ridiculous – the rubber bats being wiggled up and down just off camera, the idle attitude to plot points – and its last quarter throws in another classic movie monster and ends in the most abrupt of ways possible. But not only does it outdo Van Helsing (2004) in every conceivable way in terms of movie monster mash-ups, but this mix of economic storytelling and the complete lack of it makes it far more engaging. Franco is capable of some striking images even in a low budget film like this – Vernon’s mad eyes and blood around his lips, a hand poking out of a coffin – and scenes, such as Frankenstein’s monster kidnapping a female single with little effort whatsoever, are memorable. Its non-sequitur ending makes it better, adding to pulling the rug out from under your feet with a kick to push you further into its tone. Its far more entertaining like this, and it’s a testament to Jess Franco, as I’ve started going through his filmography, that its already clear that he had a distinct style which used weaknesses to his advantage and, decades later, makes films like this that could have been atrocious an immensely watchable surprise.

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