Doomed Movieblog

The Dracula Saga
Directed By León Klimovsky
Released: 1972
Starring: Tina Sáinz, Tony Isbert, Helga Liné, and Narciso Ibáñez Menta
Running Time: 90 minutes
DVD Studio: BCI Eclipse

Pregnant Berta (played by Tina Sáinz) and her husband Hans (Tony Isbert) travel to Castle Dracula to visit her grandfather and family. Unfortunately, her entire family and servants are vampires and Hans quickly succumbs to the vampire ladies’ charms. They leave Berta unharmed because her grandfather, Count Dracula (Narciso Ibáñez Menta), believes the child is the next in line to inherit the Dracula family bloodline. As the birth of her child approaches and she is subjected to horrors beyond imagination, Berta begins to lose her mind. If you guessed that this ain’t gonna end happily or prettily, you’re dead right. Yeah.

Spanish horror badass Klimovsky (The Werewolf Shadow, The Vampires’ Night Orgy) does his best homage to Hammer Studios but instills his vampire film with some really bizarre visuals and unique twists. In addition to Dracula and his vampire women, there are also two monsters that are so outrageous they just work. The first is a bat-headed man seen in a dream sequence and the other is an unsettling little creature that is the product of vampire inbreeding. The film’s plot is very strange and takes some ridiculous detours but it also has some lulls where things start to drag.

The soundtrack sounds like a collection of warbled library music tracks that doesn’t really work all that well. It’s strange but I think the film really deserved a totally unique soundtrack and a more attentive composer. Music aside, the rest of the production is awesome. The cinematography rocks, the lighting is perfect, the castle is beautiful, and the period sets are lush. Acting wise, the cast is perfect for this flick. The painfully blonde Tony Isbert (of Riccardo Freda’s Tragic Ceremony (made the same year)) is perhaps a little too aloof but I like the guy. The rapturously sexy Helga Liné is on hand as Munia, Dracula’s bride. And the gray and bearded actor, Narciso Ibáñez Menta, makes a very stately Dracula.

However, the show is stolen by the versatile Tina Sáinz. Thanks to her awesome performance, the slower parts of the film don’t get too dull. Watching Berta becoming more and more haunted by returning to her family home is really one of the best aspects of the film. When her madness finally leads her to grab an axe and take care of business, I just about stood up and cheered in my living room. I won’t give you the specific details of the climax of The Dracula Saga but let’s just say it’s totally perfect and helps me forgive the meandering of the plot.

The trailer:

I passed up Screams Of Reason by David J. Skal several times at my local library before I finally picked it up and started flipping through it. I then slapped my forehead and immediately checked the dang book out. Silly me, I had forgotten that I’d already devoured his 2001 book The Monster Show: A Cultural History Of Horror a couple years ago. So of course, I have been totally immersed in Screams Of Reason for the last few weeks (along with the three or four other books I’m reading at the same time (I’m a nerdy nerd)).

Skal examines not only mad scientists but aliens and radiation-mutated monsters as well and shows them for what they are: manifestations of cultural anxieties. Sounds like fun, eh? Surprisingly, yes. The author has that rare ability to make cultural studies thought-provoking as well as entertaining. Literary figures such as Dr. Victor Frankenstein, Dr. Moreau, and Dr. Jekyll are given thorough attention and even Dorian Grey gets a quick cameo. Plus, he discusses (though not at length) one of the greatest mad doctors of all time: Doctor Gogol, of the 1935 horror classic Mad Love (AKA The Hands Of Orlac).

The 1998 book hardly feels dated at all with the exception being the praising of “The X-Files”, which is probably only amusing to me. It’s hard to believe it’s been ten years since that show meant something to sci-fi folks and was still delivering the creepy goods. I’ve never had much interest in aliens or Roswell conspiracy theories but the section entitled ‘Alien Chic’ didn’t throw me off. The chapter looks at Whitley Streiber’s Communion and other abduction stories which many people accept wholeheartedly as non-fiction. Though skeptical himself, Skal isn’t trying to debunk these accounts outright but wants to know what these types of stories say about our culture and psychology.

Unfortunately, I am near the end of Screams Of Reason and I want it to go on forever. I just got to the chapter ‘The Doctor Will Eat You Now’ where our fears of doctors combined with our nearly disastrous health care system have created a bevy of psycho physicians including Hannibal Lecter and nearly every villain in every Robin Cook novel. Damn it, there’s so much good stuff in this book. Of course, Skal forces me to confront my biggest fear: the end of the world brought about by nuclear war or some other mad science creation. Oppenheimer’s a douche!