Geraldine
The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.
Horst in Translation ([email protected])
"Lady Dracula" is a West German German-language film from 1977, so this one has its 40th anniversary this year. It was directed by Austrian Franz Josef Gottlieb, who was highly prolific in his long career, but also came up with a lot of trash over the years and this movie here is a good example for that. His take on a hot blonde woman turned into a vampire by the Lord of Darkness can honestly never be taken seriously as a horror film or anything else. The shots at comedy are as frequent as in most other FJG films, but the material is pretty cringeworthy including many bad plays on words. Well what else. Oh yes the cast. It is actually not too bad if you see the names Lingen (near his death), Giller, Fux on it. And even Roberto Blanco has a little role and it is up to you to decide if that's a good thing or not. So yes with the actors in here, they also could have made a "real" film. This is just a cheap parody and the fact that they knew it very well and never tried to really do anything other than entertain is what keeps the film from becoming a total failure. And that's why I am still relatively generous with my rating here. At times, this film has guilty pleasure potential and yes the ending was of course typical for a Gottlieb movie with the last shot and the comment made by one character. Wgat also saves the film a bit is that it is relatively short at 80 minutes and this already includes several minutes of closing credits. So yes this is definitely not a film to go for if you are looking for depth, great writing or interesting characters, but if you like somewhat trashy horror films that don't take themselves too seriously, then you can go for it. From a neutral perspective, I give this one a thumbs-down though of course. Not recommended.
t_atzmueller
I must admit, I'm a sucker for those sleazy, cheesy Euro-productions of the 70's, especially the film noir and horror production, that would feature one or the other American B-actor (in this case Brad 'The Profile' Harris) and a cohort of cameo appearances of German TV- and cinema-stars.Where did it go wrong? Well, for one, director Franz Josef Gottlieb is a veteran of shallow teen- and even raunchier adult-comedies. However, the director seems unable to cope with the concept 'horror-film'. The attempt to create a hybrid (to mind comes Roman Polanskis "Dance of the Vampires") fails miserably. The jokes are so flat and outdated that they would have been considered lame in the 1950's and the horror elements are as frightening as a Halloween edition of "The Muppets".Speaking of veterans: Theo Lingen, Eddie Aren't, Roberto Blanco and Walter Giller are names that viewers of the time were extremely familiar with (they would appear in every second comedy of the period) and would guarantee at least a few uncomfortable giggles. In this case they do appear but none of them delivers.Evelyne Kraft as the protagonist cannot fill the shoes of anybody called "Dracula". Yes indeed, she's cute like a button, the audience can't wait to see her (semi)-nude but her performance as Countess Dracula is thoroughly unconvincing.Having spoken of the mandatory American import-actor, let's speak of Stephen Boyd who has a minor appearance as Count Dracula, looking as if they dressed him up for a costume-ball. Remember the Count from "Sesame Street"? Infinitely scarier. Sadly, this would be Boyd's final performance and you'll probably barely be able to recognize this wreck of a man who once was Masalla in "Ben Hur". There could have been a more fitting epitaph.The films ending is as much a letdown as the rest of the film and comes so sudden, one is almost convinced the crew had run out of film (if it weren't for Eddy Aren't of course, who has ended Edgar Wallace- and countless other German films that way).There are first Grade vampire-comedies like "Dance of the Vampires", B-grade like Clive Donners "Old Dracula", stinkers like "Dracula – Dead and Loving It" but this film really tops the bad, bad vampire comedies. Not even bad as in "so bad it is good" but simply awful as a comedy and anaemic as a vampire film. Trust a seasoned Horror-flick fan: avoid this like the plague.
Ben Holland
This is a rip of the film Countess Dracula and is not as good. Countess Dracula is the 1971 classic with Ingrid pitt.This is plain rubbish and not very good even though most european horrors are. - Check out the Roman Polanski movie -'Dance of the vampires' (aka Fearless Vampire Killers, The) instead.
