Brides Of Dracula (DVD)

Brides of Dracula is a wonderful film and by far my favourite Hammer Dracula. It's probably my favourite Hammer of all, although The Mummy pushes it close. There's just one minor "problem" though. Dracula is not in the film at all. Instead we find ourselves involved with another vampire, the Baron Meinster, played with some style by David Peel.

Marianne Danielle (Yvonne Monlaur) is travelling to Badstein Girl's Academy to take up a teaching position when she meets up with the severe Baroness Meinster (Martita Hunt) at a village tavern. Invited to stay the night at her castle, Marianne accepts and sees a man long thought dead by the villagers. The Baron, chained up in his room as a madman by his mother, persuades the gullible Marianne to release him and when she does, the cult of the vampire spreads over the district once again.

The film has an excellent cast, from the flamboyant Baron (Peel) to his mad former nanny and later nurse, Greta, played with the right mix of lunacy and menace by Freda Jackson. Peter Cushing reprises his role as van Helsing and gives his usual energetic, powerful, yet sympathetic performance. The whole cast is pretty flawless, with the possible exception of Monlaur, whose heavy French accent can grate a little.

Beautifully shot and full of colour, the film looks splendid and far more lavish than you'd expect on such a small budget, although this was a Hammer trademark so it's hardly surprising.

A quick note about the DVD versions. The new UK release has been released in full frame 4:3. The film was originally shot 1:66:1, so the full frame release shouldn't matter that much, but... there are better versions around.

The R1 release is in the original aspect ratio, but only comes as part of a boxed set on a dreaded DVD18. The German release of the film is the one I went for. It's anamorphic, in the original aspect ratio and the print looks marvellous. Nice and crisp, with full and rich colours. You get the original soundtrack, a German one (of course) and a couple of theatrical trailers and a good photo gallery on the disc. Note that there are no subtitles on the disc.

There's a nice 16 page booklet (if you can read German it's a bonus!) and the disc itself is packaged in a plastic case with a card slip case. The slip case has the artwork for the French cinema poster on the front in full colour, with the cover for the inner sleeve consisting of two black and white stills from the film, with no lettering to spoil them. A very nice package and the one to go for, in my opinion, if you have to buy an R2 disc. There's also a French version of the DVD but I don't know anything about it other than it exists.

An excellent Hammer Movie with the amazing Peter Cushing. Despite the absence of Christopher Lee this still has all the elements of a good vampire movie. Brilliant.