At the deathbed of her mother, Louisa (Britt Nichols) learns a terrible secret:
That she is the descendant of Dracula (Howard Vernon) himself, who lies in the
crypt of their family's castle. & as she makes a visit to her ancestor in
the crypt, she also encounters that the good count is not quite dead but bound
to his coffin - but he has enough power to vampirize her, making her his
willing slave ...
Soon, the police inspector (Alberto Dalbés) of the nearby village is
baffled by a mysterious series of murders of women, & he is not at all
helped by the meddling of journalist Charlie (Fernando Bilbao) & Jefferson
(Jess Franco), servant of Count Karlstein (Daniel J.White) & expert of the
occult - who is of course the only one who spots the involvement of vampires.
But even Jefferson does not know how close he is to the source of the evil,
as Louisa presently stays at the estate of Count Karlstein, being his niece
& a childhood friend of his daughter Karine (Anne Libert). Between the 2
women soon a lesbian relationship evolves, of course, while the Count himself
soon becomes prime suspect of the murders& is only saved from jail when his
mistress Anna (Yelena Samarina) testifies in his favour - even though that does
mean that her affair will be revealed to her husband Jefferson.
Jefferson though commits all of his time to discover the truth behind the
killings & soon hisa trail leads him to the crypt where Dracula lies. At
the same time though, Louisa has actually killed Karine in sexual extasy &
rushes to the crypt as well, which is bad timing, since no sooner has she lain
down in her coffin that Jefferson, journalist Charlie & the inspector show
up to once & for all kill the vampires (in rather an anti-climax actually).
A typical Jess Franco film, this movie oozes with eroticism &
horror-pulp fiction, & tells his story in atmospheric pictures, using
unusual close ups & camera-angles - but still it doesn't totally work, as
narrative coherence as well as Franco's typical tongue-in-cheek humour are
pretty much amiss here, making La Fille de Dracula not a total failure
but a rather mediocre picture for this director.
Shot, by the way, right after Franco's Dracula contre Frankenstein
& La Maldicion de Frankenstein, with the same crew, using some of
the same Portuguese locations.
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