The Brides Of Dracula

Meinster Mash

The Brides Of Dracula
UK 1960 Directed by Terence Fisher
Hammer Films Blu Ray Zone B

I remember that when I first saw The Brides Of Dracula many decades after I’d seen the other films in Hammer’s Dracula sequence, most of which I saw in my pre-teen years. I remember being hugely disappointed with this one and had a similar reaction in subsequent revisits.

My initial disappointment was that neither Dracula nor, it could be argued, the Brides of Dracula actually feature in the movie... unless you want to argue that various female vampires created by the film’s vampire villain Baron Meinster, could be given this title as a kind of extended metaphor for the brief narrative introduction to the movie, where the audience are told that, after Dracula’s death, his cult of vampirism lives on. Christopher Lee did not want to reprise his successful role two years after his initial appearance in Dracula (aka Horror Of Dracula, reviewed here), for fear of being typecast in the role. Which he kind of was, of course... and he made a fair few Dracula movies after this one (at least one of them wasn’t even for Hammer).

Of course we have Peter Cushing returning here in the role of Van Helsing and, in one of a few factors which completely shoots the continuity of the series where he’s concerned, we are told that we are in the last years of the 19th Century. Cushing, of course, is always watchable and I’d maintain he’s one of the few reasons why The Brides Of Dracula is worth a watch. It has to be said, I’m not the biggest fan of this entry into the series but I do like the director and I can appreciate some of the things he, along with his set designer, brings to the production. I do find myself quite at odds with Fisher’s biographer Tony Dalton, it has to be said, in that he says in his recent book about the director, reviewed here, that he thinks The Brides Of Dracula is one of the best films in the series. Then again, he also doesn’t have much of a good word to say about my favourite movie in the sequence, Dracula Ad 1972 (reviewed by me here), so there you go.

After the opening narration we are treated to a bumpy coach ride (Michael Ripper is a rough coach driver, I can tell you) and we are introduced to the main female protagonist  Marianne (played by Yvonne Monlaur), who is on her way to teach at a private school in Transylvania. Unable to get to the school due to an incident (which half involves a man who lurks around in various scenes looking threatening and mysterious before dropping out of the narrative completely, still leaving me with no idea who or why the character was) she stays the night with Baroness Meinster in Meinster Castle, releasing her son from his imprisonment, not knowing that he’s a vampire...

Chaos ensues but she is found and helped the next morning by Cushing’s Van Helsing character, after a lengthy series of set pieces which means he doesn’t enter the film until the 30 minute mark. Which is similar to what was done in the previous Dracula movie, where a fair piece of narrative action leading into the story was dealt with before the entrance of the title character’s arch nemesis. Lots of shenanigans ensue as Van Helsing tries to help with the local vampire problem and save Marianne from being made... well... a Bride Of Meinster... yeah, that stupid title really makes no sense for this film.

The story is not great, it has to be said but it’s the magnetic presence of Cushing and the interesting direction of Fisher which just about keeps it vaguely watchable. He moves the camera a fair amount to good effect and quite often uses the height of the actors to create vivid triangular patterns in the compositions, something which I’ve noticed him doing a lot before. Another trick to make the staging interesting is to use areas of the set which are lit just slightly darker than others and to shoot the actors in these patches before having them move forward into the light, to increase the impact of their lines as their faces are suddenly lit up. Indeed, there’s one scene in this film where he does it in rapid succession with the only two actors in the scene, a real double whammy as one steps ito the light and then the other does the same in the reverse shot.

Indeed, he uses a lot of good little tricks to create interest in the dialogue heavy scenes. For instance, a shot where Peter Cushing is standing about two thirds of the way to the right of screen, talking to a local priest who is seated on the left. We can see the priest talking to him from both the left of the screen and also in reflection in a mirror behind Cushing on the direct right of the screen, as he's nicely sandwiched  between two of the same talking head, so to speak.

Another nice thing Fisher does is bring a lot of value to his sets, partially by using the old Roger Corman trick of ‘leaving the doors open’. One fantastic instance of this is in the first scene shot in a very narrow tavern. The set goes back a long way with various protuberances coming in from the sides and then with another room seen through the back alcove which is lit in a completely different colour to the first... bathed red in stark contrast to the rest of the set, highlighting the sense of depth. Very nice stuff.

There are some real problems with the ideas about vampires though. For instance, after being bitten by one, Cushing cauterises his neck with a red hot iron and this, combined with some Holy Water, stops what is presumably a viral, chemical reaction from taking place and turning him into a vampire... somehow. It’s a nice idea but makes no sense as far as I’m concerned. Furthermore, using the shadows of the blades of a windmill to project a cross and thus stop Meinster escaping is a wonderfully creative idea... except it only works if the body of the windmill would bizarrely project no shadow, which it doesn’t in this, somehow. There is no earthly set of circumstances in the world where the shadow of the crossing blades would be seen in isolation as they are here.

And another big problem is the continuity between this picture and the previous one in the sequence. In Dracula, Van Helsing clearly states that the idea that a vampire can change one’s shape into a bat is a fallacy. In this one, however, he clearly states that a vampire can change into a bat.... which the vampires in this movie do quite frequently... at least into a dodgy looking rubber bat at any rat.

I’m curious as to why Fisher wasn’t able to tap James Bernard for repeat scoring duties on this one. Instead, the score is provided by Malcolm Williamson. Good musical continuity, at least, is kept between the two films in that, although Williamson’ doesn’t use Bernard’s famous Dracula theme, the orchestration on this is very similar to the score from the first one and provides a modicum of auditory glue between the two films. So that’s okay at least but, despite some nicely creative shots, I wouldn’t recommend The Brides Of Dracula to many people, it has to be said. I’m not saying it’s the worst Dracula picture that the studio put out but, it’s very far from the best, it seems to me. Still, I look forward to revisiting the next film in the series fairly soon.