Daughter of Dracula (1972)

Jess Franco’s Daughter of Dracula (1972) was part of a new wave of revisionist gothic horror in which classic tales were rebirthed for more modern sensibilities and more lenient censorship strictures. Made in the wake of Hammer’s Karnstein Trilogy, Franco similarly borrows sapphic influences from Sheridan LeFanu’s Carmilla, but seems more distracted by various narrative and stylistic possibilities rather than settling into a single, focused direction. Despite not being cohesive, its fractured sensibility has its own innate fascination, particularly for devotees of the director.

Luise “Karlstein” (Carment Yazalde, as Britt Nichols) visits her dying mother, who informs her that she is a descendent of Count Dracula, and gives her a key to the castle to find the crypt for herself. Exploring the family estate for herself, Luise encounters Dracula (Howard Vernon), who bites her, turning her into a vampire. When victims begin turning up in town, the local law doesn’t believe the legend, however Karlstein family secretary, Cyril Jefferson (Franco), and a journalist, Charlie (Fernando Bilbao), are convinced that the curse of Dracula has returned.

The filial plot, with a daughter avenging her father, should be familiar to Franco fans, as it was also used in The Diabolical Dr. Z (1966)—where Irma Zimmer tracks down and murders the men who shunned his father’s work, leading to his death—and The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein (1972)—where Vera Frankenstein tracking down the man responsible for murdering her father and stealing his creation). A similar plot was also used in She Killed in Ecstasy (1971), but this time it is a wife who seeks revenge on the medical profession that rejected her husband and resulted in his suicide.

Originally titled La fille de Dracula, Daughter of Dracula is a fragmentary work, suggesting several possible paths, none of which Franco follows to their final destination. At times, the film has the voyeuristic qualities reminiscent of Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom (1960), or a giallo, such as the sequences in which the vampire stalks his victims, during which Franco cross-cuts between the unaware victim undressing and extreme close-ups of the killer’s eyeball. Other scenes are undeniably campy, particularly Vernon’s over-the-top, wide-eyed portray of Dracula; the scene of Luisa delivering a nude victim to Dracula’s casket, like breakfast in bed, and then closing the lid on the pair, would not be out of place of a straight-up farce.

Other scenes are tonally disparate, alternating between more serious, dramatic passages; somber moments of disquiet; moody, atmospheric shots shot with naturalistic, pastoral elegance; and, of course, a red light-tinged erotic bar dance, a typical Franco-ian sequence. It’s hard to make sense of such inconsistency and, in the end, Franco doesn’t try. To try and force such coherency is impossible, as it was never intended. As Eric Cotenas at DVD Drive-In critiques, “the dynamics of the lesbian relationship and its vampiric aspects are not sufficiently developed to make softcore entry worth sitting through.” To take a contrary stance, I think that one can appreciate each shifting aesthetic on its own, almost as a cinematic exquisite corpse. The please of Daughter of Dracula is not in how its parts line up, but in the investment of the individual moment, and in the discordance of its totality.

Author Kristofer Todd Upjohn offers another way in which to appreciate the film in Jess Franco: The World’s Most Dangerous Filmmaker: “[Franco] knows how to find good locations for settings . . . and to use them to their fullest potential. Visual potency, as always, is a hallmark of the filmmaker’s entrancing works.”

I watched the Kino version currently streaming on Kino Cult; as per the rest of the Redemption line of Franco films, its visual quality is excellent. Kino’s Blu-ray also included commentary by Franco expert Tim Lucas; alternative, less explicit footage; and the original trailer.

Now streaming on Kino Cult, or available on DVD/Blu-ray.

–Cullen Gallagher