Brides of Dracula Year: 1960 Director: Terence Fisher Written by: Jimmy Sangster, Peter Bryan, Edward Percy Threat: Vampire Weapon of Choice: Holy Water Based upon: none Color/B&W/3D: Color Language: English Country of Origin: England IMDb page:

Other movies in this series:
Horror of Dracula
Dracula: Prince of Darkness
Dracula Has Risen from the Grave
Scars of Dracula
Taste the Blood of Dracula
Dracula A.D. 1972
The Satanic Rites of Dracula

The tyranist's thoughts
I love these old Hammer horror flicks. The way they used light and shadow. The colors. The level of detail on the set. The cultural assumptions. The innocence. In a lot of ways these are perfect Saturday afternoon films for me. I can't think of any other kind of movie that so consistently triggers the same emotions in me. Of course, they got worse the longer they went on, but in the late '50s and even through most of the '60s, Hammer had it all figured out.
So Dracula was killed at the end of the last movie, but the "cult" has survived. A naive young teacher is forced to spend the night in a small town before she travels on to her teaching assignment the next day. During that fateful night, she unleashes a vampire. Naturally, Van Helsing shows up, and the fight is on.
The plot of this one mirrors Dracula pretty directly with only a few small variations to make it new. That didn't bother me at all. I like Dracula. And the variations are interesting.
They do take a sharp turn in this one and try to construct vampirism as the leftovers of a pagan cult. That's a little weird and caused a few explanations to seem a little stretched, but then, I think we've moved beyond the attitude that probably produced this explanation.
Cushing plays Van Helsing as usual. David Peel, who looks familiar, but really isn't takes a turn as the vampire and does so reasonably well. He lacks charisma, but was obviously selected for his looks. Yvonne Monlaur is the Mina character (although here name is Marianne here). She was beautiful and the character strong for the time. Andree Melly is a minor character, but she is the actress in the scene from this movie that has become iconic for the vampire genre. I have to admit that I didn't know that scene was from this movie until I saw it just now.
If you like Hammer horror at all, then this one is highly recommended. I thoroughly enjoyed it and am likely to enjoy it again some day.
Posted: February 5, 2006

Rish's Reviews
Tyranist and I have set a goal to see all the Hammer Dracula movies before Halloween (2007). So far, we're doing pretty good.
This wasn't a bad film, but the title sure is. I mean, where is Dracula? And where are his Brides? And where is Of, for that matter?
Apart from that, we have the wonderful Peter Cushing, doing what he does best. His enemies are many, and varied. We even have a vampire who is conversational, contrite, and pitiable. I liked the hissing, almost blue-skinned vampire women, and wouldn't mind encountering them on a foggy hillside some night.
There is a great moment--probably the best part of the flick--where Van Helsing is bitten by the head vampire, effectively damned to become what he hates the most, and I honestly didn't know how he was going to overcome it.
Another nice moment is when a dead girl, killed by the undead, claws herself out of the grave, just as our heroes arrive too late to dispatch her. The ending is also quite clever, with a windmill turned into a massive cross.
The main vampire, who some may have mistaken for Dracula, hence the title, is probably the weakest part of the film. He's so fey and sickly looking, you'd think eternally-elderly Peter Cushing could dispatch him easily. Perhaps they were trying for something different, casting him, but they'd have been better off with another tall, imposing, steely-eyed man like Christopher Lee was (and is).
I didn't think this film was nearly as good as Horror of Dracula, but it was interesting and entertaining nonetheless.
Posted: October 8, 2007

Total Skulls: 5

Sequel
Sequel setup
Rips off earlier film
Horror film showing on TV/in theater in movie
Future celebrity appears
Former celebrity appears
Bad title
Bad premise
Bad acting
Bad dialogue
Bad execution
MTV Editing
OTS
Girl unnecessarily gets naked
Wanton sex
Death associated with sex
Unfulfilled promise of nudity
Characters forget about threat
Secluded location
Power is cut
Phone lines are cut
Someone investigates a strange noise
Someone runs up stairs instead of going out front door
Camera is the killer
Victims cower in front of a window/door
Victim locks self in with killer
Victim running from killer inexplicably falls
Toilet stall scene
Shower/bath scene
Car stalls or won't start
Cat jumps out
Fake scare
Laughable scare
Stupid discovery of corpse
Dream sequence
Hallucination/Vision
No one believes only witness
Crazy, drunk, old man knows the truth
Warning goes unheeded
Music detracts from scene
Death in first five minutes
x years before/later
Flashback sequence
Dark and stormy night
Killer doesn't stay dead
Killer wears a mask
Killer is in closet
Killer is in car with victim
Villain is more sympathetic than heroes
Unscary villain/monster
Beheading
Blood fountain
Blood spatters - camera, wall, etc.
Poor death effect
Excessive gore
No one dies at all
Virgin survives
Geek/Nerd survives
Little kid lamely survives
Dog/Pet miraculously survives
Unresolved subplots
"It was all a dream" ending
Unbelievably happy ending
Unbelievably crappy ending
What the hell?