Hey everyone, Slick Dungeon here, and I am back to review another Universal creature feature. We’ve gotten to the point where we have met most of our main monsters and the only logical thing is to start seeing films about their children.

This film is from 1936 so it’s pretty old. Not as old as a vampire of course, but old enough. I hadn’t seen the movie before this viewing so I will go ahead and give a spoiler warning so put your fangs away, you have been warned.

Dracula’s Daughter is the direct sequel to Dracula the original film about a vampire threat. This film begins immediately after the events of the first film. The police are investigating the commotion that was made when Van Helsing killed Dracula. The scene is pretty suspicious considering the body with a stake through it’s heart and the man whose neck had been broken by the vampire.

Van Helsing is arrested and needs help so he reaches out to a psychiatrist friend. I guess because psychiatrists are good lawyers? Anyway, the professor turns to a man named Dr. Garth who, might not exactly believe Van Helsing but is willing to help him. It just so happens that Dr. Garth also encounters a strange woman by the name of Countess Marya Zeleska. You might be guessing because Dracula was a count, that Countess Zeleska is also a vampire. You would be right.

The rest of the movie unfolds in ways you would more or less expect. Strange things happen around Countess Zeleska and bodies start showing up all over town. Dr. Garth tries to help Van Helsing and after conversations with him, Dr. Garth figures out that these strange things might be connected and there really are vampires in the world.

There are a couple of surprising things in the movie though. One is that Dracula’s daughter doesn’t really want to be a vampire. Also, I don’t want to spoil the end here but the creepy guy in the picture above plays a pivotal role.

The most amazing part to me about this film though, was Gloria Holden’s performance in the role of the title character. I swear, in the whole thing she did not blink a single time. Not once!

The film does play pretty hard into some chauvinistic stereotypes and I found Dr. Garth to be rather sexist in the movie. I know attitudes were different then but that doesn’t make them right.

There was also more comedy injected into this one and it made it easy for me to see how someone thought horror and comedy would make a great team up in later films where Abbott & Costello meet the various creatures.

Overall, this was a much better sequel than I expected, despite the complete lack of Bela Lugosi. If you haven’t checked this one out, I think it’s a pretty interesting entry in horror film history and is worth a watch.

Horrifically yours,

Slick Dungeon