accattone74 Review of Count Dracula's Great Love

Count Dracula's Great Love (1973)

Dracula as Played by Paul Naschy Playing Eeyore

[10/10 · 21 July 2015]

Though all the available prints pretty much suck, and Naschy's dubbed voice is one of the worst in his oeuvre, I can still make out a truly fine film underneath all the muck (the whole film is on YouTube, but with commercials). Naschy had a very specific body type, so it's great to see those films where he didn't let his shorter, stockier physique get in the way of playing characters that are traditionally tall and/or gaunt. And this is a great little spin on the Dracula story too, with an ending even I did not see coming. The plot of Count Dracula's Great Love concerns ye olde sanguine's attempts to procure the blood of virgins and innocents so as to revive his dead daughter (which is a great twist from the usual lost-love pining). Rosanna Yanni is simply fantastic as the lusty Senta, and in fact, all four of the female co-stars really shine here. This film has atmosphere in spades, much like Aguirre's previous film with Naschy, The Hunchback of the Morgue. Dracula still lives in an old Gothic castle, and the surrounding area is fog-shrouded, but the art direction is so superb that it elevates the film far beyond the assumed banal. And Naschy proves that he can play a romantic lead without the crutch of Waldemar, though his Count Dracula is more akin to Barnabas Collins than the manic blood-junkies one normally has to endure in a vampire film (though there's nothing wrong with the occasional manic blood-junkie). Unfortunately Dracula's heart is too big to fit through the needle of his immoral deeds, and so we're left with one of the most striking and shocking endings in the entire canon of vampire movies. What can I say? Like Naschy's Dracula, I'm a sucker for a/the romantic.