Vampiress Review: "The Return of Dracula"

The Gist: Dracula sneaks into the United States by murdering and taking the place of a man who was moving there to live with his long lost family.

Clarification:  This is easily one of the most trusting families in Cinema considering their new cousin is quite the creepy molester type who is very hands on with the girl who is supposed to be his high school aged cousin.  Of course they just pass his creepiness off as him not being accustomed to the American ways of not being a groping molester (legitimate 1950's logic).

Luckily for them a vampire hunter has followed him to the United States under the guise of a government agent just in time to prevent him from turning her into one of the undead.

Selling Point: Unless you're a completionist as far as Dracula movies go not much.  This isn't a bad movie at all its just that Hammer Horrors first Dracula movie "Horror of Dracula" came out later the same year and was far superior since this film is quite toned down with it's implied horror compared to Hammers graphic horror.

Female Vampire Factor: This film follows the premise of most Dracula films that would come after the 1930's Bella Lugosi film. Dracula has his eyes on one attractive female but for whatever reason goes after a completely unrelated one first.  In the original it was Lucy, in this it would be a young blind girl named Jennie (Virginia Vincent).

  Jennie meets the same fate Lucy does in pretty much the exact same manor. 

The main object of his affection as mentioned is the young daughter of the family he lives with Rachael (Norma Eberhardt).

1958 promotional photo for the film

Unfortunately per usual with these films Dracula takes too long and dies before he can finish his plan. The above promotional still is the closest you get to an undead Rachael which is not in the film other than he does paint a picture of her in this pose.

There is only one piece of graphic horror in this film with the staking of Jenny in her coffin (which is  also the only part of the film in color).  Otherwise no biting or fangs and the worst thing you get is a dog attacking a guy.  I give it Vampire Beauty Rating of 1 out of 5.  It's very easy to see how Hammer Horror became the go to production company for Dracula films in this era.

Vampiress Review: "Dracula: The Impaler"

The Gist: A group of teenagers venture off to Dracula's castle in Transylvania for their final trip together before going off to college because one of them had a dream about a female vampire.

Clarification: This is one of those horror films where the main protagonists are basically the most annoying teenagers in the world with the survival instincts of a lemming and in all reality you watch the whole thing wishing if someone is going to kill them that they'd hurry up.  Basically if you've seen any Friday the 13th films you pretty much get what type of film this is.

With that being said all of that is tied into the film well and it actually makes for a very entertaining indy horror flick.  As far as it's ranking as a vampire film it's not so high considering the major plot twist which I will get into later.

Selling Point: A very satisfying horror film with a very well told story.

Female Vampire Factor: The caretaker of the castle is a woman named Veronica (Diana Busuioc)

She is your stereotypical really creepy yet extremely sexy Romanian countess type.  She takes a liking to one of her new house guests the second she sees him.  Eventually we learn in the film that she is really Elisabeta the wife of Vlad the Impaler aka Dracula who's lived in the castle for thousands of years and her obsession with the young man is that she wants to do a ceremony placing Dracula's spirit into his body but get this...that isn't even close to being the major plot twist of this film.

There is even a scene in the film where one of the girls of the group has an unfortunate and deadly meeting with Dracula's harem of B-team brides (I say B-team since obviously they aren't as important as Elisabeta since they're stuck locked in the same room together.)

 As I mentioned before though this is barely a vampire film.  In fact the vampirism is all implied, no fangs and even in the above scene the girl is actually stabbed to death and more eaten than having her blood sucked.  In fact it not being a vampire movie is part of the twist. Because of that though I have to give it a Vampire Beauty Rating of 1 out of 5.  Awesome horror movie but if you're holding out for some vampire scenes you will be highly disappointed.

Vampiress Review: "All Hallows Eve"

The Gist: A group of friends on Halloween take turns telling scary stories.

Clarification: I probably should have put "scary" in quotes as all but one actually deal with anything monster like (that being the vampire one).  The other two consists of a guy getting hunted down after going hunting instead of spending his one year anniversary with his girlfriend and another being a  jealous girl murdering a woman she sees as a threat to her relationship.  All three stories end with some type of plot twist.  Most of those being pretty imaginative.

Selling Point: The only reason this film is rated R is the vampire portion which has nudity.

Female Vampire Factor:  In the third and last story the guy in the story is having sex with a woman who sprouts fangs and bites him (Daniela Glenn).

He eventually comes home to his girlfriend who is unreasonably OK with the whole "infidelity" thing but informs him that the woman who bit him was probably a vampire named Bloody Mary and he's been marked.  He is skeptical at first but as he ends up constantly fantasizing about the woman he finally believes her but ends up under her trance anyway.

The twist being that in the story "Bloody Mary" has a sister that takes her place after she's killed and that sister ends up being the girlfriend who ends up taking the guy for herself.

I thoroughly enjoyed the whole movie.  As far as the vampire portion goes it gets a Vampire Beauty Rating of 4 out of 5.  Basically it's an Evilwomenmovies storyline but not as cheesy and better produced.   It's not a long film and isn't drawn out so I do recommend checking it out.