At the time of its release, this Jess Franco film was promoted as being the most faithful adaption of Bram Stoker's 19th century Gothic horror novel Dracula there had hitherto been. I think that may well have been true, as it features a mustachioed Dracula who gets visibly younger as the film progresses, as well as some other never before examined details from the book. However, it was still a very loose adaption in many other ways, with much omitted and even some bizarre inventions (those boulders at the end!). But maybe the biggest issue that hampered it achieving its lofty goal was a lack of budget. The sets are often threadbare and there are cheap props, such as rubber bats and such. But, interestingly, in many ways it is better than the later multi-million dollar Francis Ford Coppola version, which was also promoted as being the most faithful version. This newer film took far huger liberties with the story and characters and it also had a much less effective cast. For my money Franco had better-suited actors in virtually every role in his film, in particular with Christopher Lee in the title role, Klaus Kinski perfect as the insane Renfield, Herbert Lom provided nice gravitas as Van Helsing, the enigmatic beauty Soledad Miranda is wonderful as Lucy and Maria Rohm also very alluring in the role of Mina. Even the fairly unremarkable Fred Williams is still decidedly better than Keanu Reeves in the Jonathan Harker role! It's a very good cast that Franco had to work with.
It does benefit from being shot using genuine Gothic European locations and consequently is quite atmospheric. It's also notable for being one of the decidedly less salacious Franco films from the period. There's no sleaze here and it really does feel like he was going for something a bit classier than he mainly went for. It's not among his best films for be fair – he seemed to do better work when he was working more from a sexploitation direction – yet it's certainly one of his most story-driven and coherent. For Dracula devotees, this is certainly a film to check out, in order to compare and contrast with others. Ultimately, its low budget does scupper its ambitions somewhat, yet it still has enough about it that's interesting and works.
It does benefit from being shot using genuine Gothic European locations and consequently is quite atmospheric. It's also notable for being one of the decidedly less salacious Franco films from the period. There's no sleaze here and it really does feel like he was going for something a bit classier than he mainly went for. It's not among his best films for be fair – he seemed to do better work when he was working more from a sexploitation direction – yet it's certainly one of his most story-driven and coherent. For Dracula devotees, this is certainly a film to check out, in order to compare and contrast with others. Ultimately, its low budget does scupper its ambitions somewhat, yet it still has enough about it that's interesting and works.