Vampires

Scars of Dracula

Lust for a Vampire

Dracula's Daughter/Son of Dracula

Dracula's Daughter This cut-rate sequel to Dracula, sans Bela Lugosi, turns out to be an unexpectedly sleek and stylish movie. Gloria Holden, tall, dark, and continental, is the aristocratic title character fighting her nature and seeking a cure for her affliction. A sympathetic psychiatrist, Dr. Garth (Otto Kruger), encourages her to "face her fears," but when she lures a pretty young streetwalker to her room to model for a painting, the temptation of her fleshy offering proves too much to overcome. Edward Van Sloan reprises his role as Van Helsing, held by the police for the murder of Count Dracula (the film opens on the final scene from Dracula) but released in the nick of time to help Garth, now at the mercy of the bitter and vindictive vampire. Director Lambert Hillyer makes the most of his low budget, with austere, angular sets and an almost abstract sense of the foggy city night. Holden's mysterious face and tall, willowy body make her an even more striking vampire than Lugosi, and Irving Pichel's offbeat servant is like an American gangster with the breeding of a European aristocrat: thick and thuggish, but always proper. The script falls into the usual rut of Universal's later horror films, losing the mood in the busy plot, but the smooth style and Holden's dignified performance lift Dracula's Daughter above most Universal sequels.

Son of Dracula It was perhaps inevitable that, after playing the Wolf Man, Frankenstein's monster, and the Mummy, Lon Chaney Jr. would round out his horror resumé with a turn at the great bloodsucker himself (not, as the title would suggest, his son). Looking dapper and dignified under the cape, if not exactly threatening, Chaney plays Count Alucard (that's Dracula spelled backwards), a mysterious Carpathian summoned to America by a "morbid" heiress (Louise Allbritton). Eric Taylor's script is rather clunky, but the story (by horror specialist Curt The Wolfman Siodmak) is often quite clever, playing like a supernatural twist on a psycho-thriller. Allbritton's frustrated fiancé Robert Page accidentally "kills" her while trying to shoot Alucard (who imperiously stands up to the hail of bullets) and then goes stark raving mad as he watches the dead rise to life and the living disappear in wisps of smoke and morph into creaky stage bats.

Future film noir legend (and Curt's brother) Robert Siodmak (The Killers) does wonders with the swampy, misty Deep South setting despite his obviously threadbare budget, transforming the usual clichés into moments of inspired melodrama. Only the clumsy antics of the skeptical cops and the plodding exposition spouted by an old Carpathian doctor (he just happens to be the local MD) get in the way of this moody minor horror gem. --Sean Axmaker

Female Vampire

Countess Irina of Karlstein resides quietly in a hotel on the island of Madeira, where she sustains her immortality by feeding on the life essence of men and women. When new victims are found fatally drained of potency, forensic scientist Dr. Roberts consults his colleague, Dr. Orloff, who confirms that a vampire is responsible. Meanwhile, Irina is confronted by a poet who believes he is destined to become her lover and join her among the immortals! Jess Franco's influential erotic horror film is presented here in its full-strength version, and for the first time in a widescreen format. The uninhibited Lina Romay makes her starring debut as Countess Irina in a role that established her as a sex and horror film icon. Submit yourself to the life-consuming thirsts of EuroHorror's most famous Female Vampire!

Dracula (Universal Studios Classic Monster Collection)

When Universal Pictures picked up the movie rights to a Broadway adaptation of Dracula, they felt secure in handing the property over to the sinister team of actor Lon Chaney and director Tod Browning. But Chaney died of cancer, and Universal hired the Hungarian who had scored a success in the stage play: Béla Lugosi. The resulting film launched both Lugosi's baroque career and the horror-movie cycle of the 1930s. It gets off to an atmospheric start, as we meet Count Dracula in his shadowy castle in Transylvania, superbly captured by the great cinematographer Karl Freund. Eventually Dracula and his blood-sucking devotee (Dwight Frye, in one of the cinema's truly mad performances) meet their match in a vampire-hunter called Van Helsing (Edward Van Sloan). If the later sections of the film are undeniably stage bound and a tad creaky, Dracula nevertheless casts a spell, thanks to Lugosi's creepily lugubrious manner and the eerie silences of Browning's directing style. (After a mood-enhancing snippet of Swan Lake under the opening titles, there is no music in the film.) Frankenstein, which was released a few months later, confirmed the horror craze, and Universal has been making money (and countless spin-off projects) from its twin titans of terror ever since. Certainly the role left a lasting impression on the increasingly addled and drug-addicted Lugosi, who was never quite able to distance himself from the part that made him a star. He was buried, at his request, in his black vampire cape. --Robert Horton

Dracula (The Restored Version) Although there have been numerous screen versions of Bram Stoker's classic tale, none is more enduring than the 1931 original. The ominous portrayal of Count Dracula by Bela Lugosi, combined with horror specialist director Tod Browning, help to create the film's eerie mood. Dracula remains a masterpiece not only of the genre, but for all time. Dracula (Featuring New Music By Philip Glass) The original version of Dracula starring Bela Lugosi has been remastered to feature a specially-composed musical score by world-renowned composer Philip Glass and performed by Kronos Quartet. Glass' music lends greater depth to an already timeless classic! Dracula (Original Spanish Version) Filmed simultaneously with the English language version, the Spanish version of Dracula is completely different, yet equally ominous vision of the horror classic. Utilizing the same sets and identical script, cinematographer George Robinson and a vibrant cast including Carlos Villarias and Lupita Tovar deliver this chilling and evocative tale.

Nosferatu

As noted critic Pauline Kael observed, "... this first important film of the vampire genre has more spectral atmosphere, more ingenuity, and more imaginative ghoulish ghastliness than any of its successors." Some really good vampire movies have been made since Kael wrote those words, but German director F.W. Murnau's 1922 version remains a definitive adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula. Created when German silent films were at the forefront of visual technique and experimentation, Murnau's classic is remarkable for its creation of mood and setting, and for the unforgettably creepy performance of Max Schreck as Count Orlok, a.k.a. the blood-sucking predator Nosferatu. With his rodent-like features and long, bony-fingered hands, Schreck's vampire is an icon of screen horror, bringing pestilence and death to the town of Bremen in 1838. (These changes of story detail were made necessary when Murnau could not secure a copyright agreement with Stoker's estate.) Using negative film, double-exposures, and a variety of other in-camera special effects, Murnau created a vampire classic that still holds a powerful influence on the horror genre. (Werner Herzog's 1978 film Nosferatu the Vampyre is both a remake and a tribute, and Francis Coppola adopted many of Murnau's visual techniques for Bram Stoker's Dracula.) Seen today, Murnau's film is more of a fascinating curiosity, but its frightening images remain effectively eerie. --Jeff Shannon

The greatest horror film of all! A long time ago in middle Europe, a decrepit, forbidding castle stood. Casting an ominous shadow over the townspeople who dare not look upon it, the unholy dwelling is home to one Count Orlok (Max Schreck), an undead night creature with a taste for human blood. Showcasing the extremely eerie Schreck, "Nosferatu" is the first screen adaptation of Bram Stoker's classic novel "Dracula," stylistically directed by the legendary F.W. Murnau. Now available in this gorgeous newly remastered and rescored by The Silent Orchestra in 5.1 audio.

Vampyr

In this chilling, atmospheric German film from 1932, director Carl Theodor Dreyer favors style over story, offering a minimal plot that draws only partially from established vampire folklore. Instead, Dreyer emphasizes an utterly dreamlike visual approach, using trick photography (double exposures, etc.) and a fog-like effect created by allowing additional light to leak onto the exposed film. The result is an unsettling film that seems to spring literally from the subconscious, freely adapted from the Victorian short story Carmilla by noted horror author Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, about a young man who discovers the presence of a female vampire in a mysterious European castle. There's more to the story, of course, but it's the ghostly, otherworldly tone of the film that lingers powerfully in the memory. Dreyer maintains this eerie mood by suggesting horror and impending doom as opposed to any overt displays of terrifying imagery. Watching Vampyr is like being placed under a hypnotic trance, where the rules of everyday reality no longer apply. As a splendid bonus, the DVD includes The Mascot, a delightful 26-minute animated film from 1934. Created by pioneering animator Wladyslaw Starewicz, this clever film--in which a menagerie of toys and dolls springs to life--serves as an impressive precursor to the popular Wallace & Gromit films of the 1990s. --Jeff Shannon

Carl Theodor Dreyer's eerie horror classic stars Julian West as a visitor to a remote inn under the spell of an aged, bloodthristy female vampire. Extremely atmospheric, this rare gem delivers a decided chill.

Playgirls & The Vampire

Made in 1960, Piero Regnoli's "The Playgirls and the Vampire" is one of the earliest Italian horror films. After skipping out on an unpaid hotel bill, a busload of curvaceous showgirls is forced off the road by a thunderstorm. They prevail on the hospitality of a nearby castle, where the reclusive Count Kernassy nearly orders them away--until he sees Vera, a leggy dancer who's a dead ringer for his beautiful ancestor Margherita! Unfortunately, Vera is also attractive to the Count's 200 year old, bloodthirsty ancestor--who's a dead ringer for his descendant!

Kiss of the Vampire

Don Sharp's moody if workmanlike horror film suffers from the absence of Christopher Lee, whose intense, almost feral presence in The Horror of Dracula made him one of the most memorable bloodsuckers in film history. In his place is a veritable undead cabal led by the vampire patriarch Ravna (Noel Willman), a nobleman whose family literally holds a tiny Eastern European village hostage. When a young honeymooning couple wanders into this terror-gripped crossroads, Ravna decides to make the innocent bride his own, and the dizzy groom can only turn to the dark eyed, wild-bearded Prof. Zimmer (Clifford Evans) for help. It's an unusual chapter in the vampire legend, as these undead are more like a cult interested in adding to their numbers, complete with formal ceremonies. Sharp creates a thick cloud of dread from the empty streets, the mourning peasants, and the fog that seems to carpet the doomed town every night, but has less success with his cast. Only Zimmer emerges as a memorable figure, an almost demonic-looking vampire hunter who comes off as a shadowy alter ego of Van Helsing. Christopher Lee returned in Hammer's next vampire picture, Dracula, Prince of Darkness. --Sean Axmaker

Lost on the way to their honeymoon, a young couple are lured into the castle of hypnotic Dr. Ravna, plunging them into a nightmare of horror and deception from which there may be no escape.

Dracula vs. Frankenstein

Count Dracula meets Dr. Frankenstein and the two revive the infamous Monster for a blood bath of thrills and chills. Off-the-wall wild scream classic!System Requirements:Running Time: 90 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: HORROR UPC: 790357902736 Manufacturer No: 9027