Dr Abraham Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) returns in his mission to eradicate vampirism.
His latest adversary is the deceptively youthful Baron Meinster (David Peel), who has his eyes on the students of a local finishing school.
A few years ago, spurred on by the release of The Last Voyage of Demeter, I revived several different adaptations of the Dracula story.
After finishing off that little project, I thought I had scratched that itch.
A few months ago, I attended a local ballroom event, which featured a variety of performers - and attendees in various supernaturally themed costumes.
I stupidly did not wear a costume, and in between the performances, I was brainstorming costume ideas. I started whittling down to vampires, and started going through different iterations.
This is where I started thinking about David Peel’s performance in this film.
If I am not mistaken, this is one of the first Hammer films I had ever seen - before I had even seen Peel’s more iconic predecessor.
The only Hammer Dracula film to not feature the man himself, the would-be Dracula II was reconfigured around his antagonist, Peter Cushing’s Van Helsing when Christopher Lee declined to return.
There are some differences - James Bernard is not on hand, nor is his imposing theme for the original title character.
The other quality which sets it apart: extremely vibrant colour.
I have read reviews that refer to this element giving the production the quality of a fairy tale (particularly the Grimm variety).
The first act of Brides of Dracula is fantastic.
We are introduced to the local village through naive young teacher Marianne (Yvonne Monlaur), who becomes the unwitting guest of the Meinster family.
The introduction of Baroness Meinster (Martia Hunt) is a similar misdirect to Lee’s disarming introduction in the original film: she enters with a single word (“Wine”) that plays on one of the more famous phrases from Dracula lore.
With her restrained body language, staccato delivery and lack of appetite, she appears to be the antagonist (as the title refers - misleadingly - to a feminine threat).
This is in stark contrast to the Baron, who is presented as a prisoner, standing on his balcony in contemplative pose.
As the villain’s jailor mother, Martia Hunt is fantastic - her breakdown when she realises her son has escaped, and the way she segues into despondency when he corners her, is one of the highlights of the film. She gives the film a sense of pathos, of the twisted family dynamic underpinning her love for her son.
He cannot quite bring the same sexual undercurrent or presence as Lee, but David Peel is an effective stand-in, at least for one film.
His smooth, understated menace is effective, particularly as he chivalrously woos Marianne in a parody of courtship.
Another interesting turn on a familiar archetype is Freda Jackson as Greta, Baroness Meinster’s obsessive servant. Fulfilling a similar function to Renfield, and later films’ take on the familiar (Klove in Prince of Darkness and Scars of Dracula), Greta is a gender-bent spin with a more complex relationship with her mistress and master.
Seemingly torn between love and terror of the Baron, she ends up a pretty solid barometer for the film as a whole - a promisingly unique spin on a familiar character that is eventually reduced to type - while Jackson is effective, Greta turns into a minion - in a rather effective scene, she cackles as she draws a newborn vampire from its grave.
While it has some interesting stylistic distinctions from Horror of Dracula, this film also starts running with some ideas that would continue to feed through the franchise.
This film recontextualises the idea of Vampirism from a disease toward more of a cult, the legacy of a pagan, pre-Christian religion. The Baron’s transformation is the result of his Dionysian appetites.
Through the characters of the Baron and his mother, Brides also begins to deal with the idea of vampirism as a vehicle for Victorian-era hypocrisy, a theme that later films in the cycle would delve into more explicitly.
Going back to my criticism of Greta, the reason I use her as a bellwether is because after the opening, the film deflates.
Ironically, the film loses steam once Van Helsing enters the frame.
The script forces the character to be more reactive, and the plotting is devolves into various contrived delays to the inevitable confrontation - there are no surprises, such as Jonathan’s aborted ambush on Dracula’s coffin (or Dracula’s move of hiding his coffin in his enemy’s house).
The film is also let down by some clumsy choreography - the Vampire’s escapes from Van Helsing come across as nonsensical (at one point, he runs straight into the Baron as he wacks him with a candlestick).
The last five minutes almost save it.
The location is novel (a windmill), and there is some genuine peril for our hero:
Van Helsing is bitten but improvises a solution to save himself by heating a poker and burning his neck wounds with it and covering it with holy water.
One point: why do the Brides just watch him, rather than attacking or restraining him?
The Baron’s death is almost great - Van Helsing jumps on the windmill to make sure it tilts to cast the shadow of a cross on the ground where the Baron stands.
The Baron falls dead - not even a reprise of Dracula’s collapse into ashes from the previous film.
Some hold this film as superior to the original - I would not go that far.
Not even close. Stylistically it is fabulous, but after an energetic opening, it falls into a rut of repetitive chase scenes.
Related
Dracula (1931 Spanish version)
The Last Voyage of the Demeter
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