Doctor Dracula Reviews

This entertaining hodgepodge of Satanism, vampires, and new age psychobabble doesn't make much sense, but thanks to director Al Adamson's talent for splicing together unrelated footage into semi-coherent and highly surreal action, Dr. Dracula deranges the senses quite nicely. An unfinished film entitled Lucifer's Women revolved around a reincarnated Svengali and the secret society that furnishes him with eternal life through Satanic ritual. Adamson bought the rights to this footage and fleshed the story out by adding a vampiric psychiatrist who harbors an unexplained grudge against the occultists. Though Gregorio provides the film with a title and takes up a great deal of screen time, he is a peripheral character to the real story and appears onscreen only to ridicule and subvert the Satanists' powers or to suck the blood out of a number of anonymous maidens. The vengeful daughter, her desperate father (played by former Red Ryder star Donald "Red" Barry), and a devilish friend of the family (the ubiquitous John Carradine) are all Adamson additions, sewn into the fabric of the original plot with care as the film begins, but unravelling with each passing scene until the comically abrupt finale. By the time the climactic Black Mass is staged, clumsy editing and mismatched film stock has rendered Dr. Dracula a hopeless jumble. However, Carradine fans will love his ripe rhapsody for the glory of Satan, as well as the childish glee with which he wraps his gnarled fingers around medieval torture props (he also performs the most half-hearted death scene ever recorded). Not as violent as the standard Adamson horror show, the film still delivers lots of freaky action and nonsensical blasphemy for the psychotronic-minded.