This film starts out great.A coach driven by a skeleton races noiselessly through the woods. Rather spooky and a classic scene in Mexican horror cinema.In it is the dreaded vampire Count Frankenhausen.When the Count gets to his home we're treated to more fog and spookiness.
Then the yakking begins.One of the Count's idiot neighbors is his sworn enemy Count Cagliostro.They've lived nearby for some time and didn't even know it!Anyway Count Cagliostro babbles endlessly about a new method to kill vampires.It isn't even used in this film but is in the sequel, Invasion Of The Vampires.Then the Count Cagliostro goes to the capitol probably to filibuster and we don't thankfully see him until the end of the film.I thought he escaped from a Jerry Warren film.
His daughter and doctor fiance discover that the evil Count lives nearby.So naturally Anna goes undercover as a servant to the Countess there.For some reason the Count hasn't fanged his wife but fangs servant girls brought to him by the sadistic Frau Hildegard.Well Anna turns on Frankenhausen and off we go.
There is some real brutality here with the whipping of servants and one has his tongue cut out of his mouth.The last twenty minutes pick up the pace and we're treated to a nice chase and some spooky shots of the vampire chasing the heroine through the house with lightning flashing and thunder rumbling.
In the end there is a climactic downbeat showdown in the cave of the vampires.All in all some of the spooky scenes save this movie.The soundtrack switches from choral music to jarring electronic weirdness which is creepy.A very sloooow middle though.Check out the ears on the bat.
|
