A group of young travelers in 19th century Europe run afoul of the suave yet mysterious Dr. Wendell (Paul Naschy) when their carriage breaks down en route to their destination. Wendell offers them lodging and accommodations for the interim, which proves advantageous for the blossoming love between Imre Polvi (Vic Winner AKA Victor Alcazar) and his beau Marlene (Ingrid Garbo). However, events soon take a turn for the worse when the legends of vampirism and the previous caretaker’s curious affinity for human blood surrounding Wendell’s castle become eerily true. Within the course of a few nights nearly the entire group-Marlene (Ingrid Garbo), Elke (Mirta Miller), Imre and Senta (Rossana Yanni)-transmogrify to members of Wendell’s bloodthirsty coven. Only the naïve, virginal Karen (French actress Haydée Politoff) remains free of Wendell’s vampiric grasp. Or so it seems. Karen is soon sought out by Wendell to be his true lover in the afterlife, and only the blood of a willing virgin will allow him to resurrect his long-dead daughter. But in a fateful twist, Karen rejects his amorous advances and the count willingly takes his own life in sorrow.

Taking a break from his most famous screen persona, the melancholy hombre lobo Waldemar Daninsky, Naschy proves his versatility in the horror genre by giving an invigorating interpretation of one of horror cinema’s great icons. Despite his short stature, Naschy commands the screen with the same brooding intensity of his Daninsky roles. The film also provides the actor to allay any criticisms of his limited acting field. Such scenes as his nightly walks with Karen are genuinely heartwarming and intensely emotional. Also, the scenes in which he stalks the undead catacombs of the castle (actually part of General Miaja’s bunker during the Spanish civil war [1]) are some of the actor’s very best. Seldom has Naschy commanded the screen better than here: the sight of Naschy ambulating past crumbling columns, grimy torches and musty coffins will undoubtedly excite even the most jaded viewer. Because Naschy’s Dracula is one of conflicted emotion and underlying sorrow, his scenes of traditional terror in his lair resonate far deeper in the viewer’s psyche, posing a potent argument for the validity of careful character development in the horror genre. The resultant combination of moody lighting and the unexpected pathos grants the film an almost expressionist flair.

The film’s greatest achievement, however, is its level of technical skill and surprising ingenuity. Director Javier Aguirre (director of the same year’s Hunchback of the Morgue largely considered Naschy’s finest hour) treats the Spanish horror genre right by avoiding extraneous zooms and needlessly ostentatious camerawork. In effect Aguirre doesn’t dilute the primal intensity of the various scenes of bloodletting or the atmospheric flourishes of beautiful vampire slaves rising from their creaky cradles. Special mention must also be made to the film’s editor, Raul Perez Cubero, and his remarkably acute sense of editing and subtle suggestion. Cubero’s editing is so taut that it plays with viewer’s expectations and often dissolves them, especially in the case of the identity of count Dracula’s soon-to-be immortal companion. Almost immediately the film suggests that Marlene will be Dracula’s undead beau: she takes an instant liking to his charm and looks, makes love to him and even Dracula himself admits his passion for her. And in a master stroke it is she who is literally caught in one of Dracula’s "traps": while strolling though the woods she is gruesomely ensnared in one of the count’s hunting traps. This instance again suggests that it is she who will join Dracula, because of the hunter and the hunted concept. However, it is Cubero’s succinct editing that sutures a progression of sequences together so well that it single-handedly suggests Karen’s fate as the count’s bride. Sequences of a visibly frightened Karen in the arms of Naschy are book-ended with intensely erotic scenes of Elki and Senta feasting their bloodied fangs on the nude, nubile body of Marlene. This careful editing seems to seal Karen’s fate as a member of the count’s vampiric coven, but this is yet another successful ploy by Aguirre to keep the viewer’s attention and curb predictability, as it results that Karen rejects Dracula’s advances and avoids his deathly grip.

Aguirre continues to inject his film with careful symbolism by subtly evoking imagery of the werewolf, Naschy’s most famed persona. The recurring zooms and long glances at the midnight moon are an obvious wink to the viewer; Dracula’s tragic woe and ultimate downfall by means of his true love are also characteristic stipulations of the Daninsky character. Naschy even goes so far as to admit that the cost for immortality is "horror and eternal loneliness", which is perhaps the most succinct summation not only of Daninsky but also of the actor’s roles and even career.

The film continues to please with its effortless distillation of the Dracula myth’s most important veins: eroticism and bloody horror. The innate sensuality of the vampiric act is fully realized by Aguirre and results in some of the era’s most potent scenes. There is a delicious scene in which a recently vampirised Imre materializes from the dark abyss of Marlene’s bedroom, his eyes glowing like taillights in the night. He then proceeds to seduce Marlene in a tense, horrific scene of eroticism, smearing her blood over her breasts with his fangs. The standout sequence, however, is the climatic ritual in which a cloaked Naschy presides over his daughter’s petrified corpse and attempts to revive her with Karen’s virginal blood. Here the main strands of Spanish horror (eroticism, rotting atmosphere and ritual bloodletting) come together splendidly as a captive, innocent village woman is brutally whipped and a hanging Karen’s wrist is slit, her blood trickling down onto the skeleton. The simultaneously sensual and horrific alchemy of hot blood and cold, dried bone results in a dazzlingly phantasmagoric image, undoubtedly one of Naschy’s most impressive of his career. The ambitious sequence continues to impress as Dracula drinks the bloody mix of Karen and the villager’s hemoglobin from a golden goblet. And any critics of Naschy’s earlier films being too "soft" will be pleasantly surprised by some of the film’s gruesome deaths, including a most unfortunate villager’s entrapment in a hunting trap and his subsequent blood draining by Naschy. Finally, there is a wonderfully bold shot of two vampire nymphs leaping up to a villager’s window in the night. And contrary to popular consensus, the day-for-night scenery compounds the film’s surreal atmosphere, rather than exposing its rushed shooting schedule (and tumultuous- there were a variety of near-fatal mishaps on the set.)

Thankfully Aguirre concentrates on the poetic bloodletting and hypnotic visuals, because the acting is painfully stilted. The petty quarrels between the women are glaringly redundant and unnecessary. The score by Carmelo Bernaola is another unfortunate blunder that is workman-like at best, no doubt heavily composed of old CAM library cues. Aguirre’s only Achilles heel is his hesitance to discard narrative structure and wholly rely on delirious visuals and cinematic suggestion, similar to the approach of France’s leading vampire contemporary, Jean Rollin.

But these are meager complaints. Dracula’s Great Love is one of the mythical "total packages" of Spanish horror, encompassing sensual seduction, intrigue, pathos, bloody horror and often spellbinding atmosphere. It should come as no surprise, then, that the film was one of Naschy’s larger critical and commercial successes.

----------------------------------------

[1] Mike Hodges, Paul Naschy: Memoirs of a Wolfman (Baltimore: Midnight Marquee Press, 2000) 111-112.