Jonathan Harker (Dan MacDonald) has traveled to Transylvania to sell Carfax Abbey to the mysterious Count Dracula (Norman Welsh) - and he notices only much too late that the count has ulterior motives and ends up a prisoner in the count's Transylvanian castle while the count travels to the England.

Back in the UK, lovely Lucy is suffering from some mysterious illness. Her husband Jack Seward (Steven Sutherland), though a doctor himself, knows no cure, so he calls on his mentor Van Helsing (Nehemiah Persoff), who of course is quick to notice all signs of vampirism, but he has come too late to prevent her death. Not much after that episode, a physically drained Jonathan Harker stumbles into the house, and initially, Van Helsing thinks he's the vampire, but from him learns the story about Dracula's coming to England. Mina, Harker's fiancee and the late Lucy's best friend, soon shows the same symptoms as Lucy. So Van Helsing makes up a plan, to concecrate all the coffins he has brought with hosts, this way cornering him and then stake him. And after Dracula is allowed to give a compassionate speech, it's Lucy who drives the stake through his heart.

This is the story of Dracula simmered down to less than 60 minutes, so of course some considerable omissions have been made and everything has been streamlined. Also, it was made on a tiny budget that didn't allow for any exterior shooting or fancy sets. The main let-down of this version of the book though is that it's incredibly stagey - and thus comes across as static, un-cinematic, and also very hammy. That and some scenes are more reminiscent of silent cinema than anything that has happened since, due to a total lack of interest in proper camerawork or the like. Of course, this version does have some obscurity value to it, but in all it's a bit of a letdown, unfortunately.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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