Brilliant and touching

Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

No one, it seems, wants to give up on a really good bad guy.Dracula, the main character in one of the two best all-time classic horror novels, has been in countless movies from numerous nations. He seems out to prove you just can't keep a bad man down.These movies used to keep me in chills as a kid. Now that I'm a little older, I'm beginning to worry that the full breadth of the character is never going to be captured in one movie.Bela Lugosi certainly captured Dracula's sinister elegance, but director Todd Browning, working with a severely slashed budget, had to stick to adapting the stage play and abandon plans to realize the novel; it's very slow-moving, especially the second half.Christopher Lee's Hammer films capture the brute force of Dracula in ways Browning and Lugosi could not in their era. But the Hammer films largely do away with Dracula's intelligence and scheming. They also get progressively worse as the series continued, finally getting to where you're bored silly every minute Dracula isn't on screen, leaving him without much in the way of adversaries.Francis Ford Coppola did not give us a Dracula for the ages, largely due to making him look like someone's wig-wearing grandma from the Victorian era, and then the thug you hope your daughter never brings home to meet you.With a talented star like Lee, and a director like Franco, it's a shame this isn't better than it is. But it does give some creepy atmospheric chills.Franco shows talent in some scenes; other developments he handles pretty tritely, or seems in too much in of a hurry. I couldn't help but wonder if this was a product of his previous experience of low-budget exploitation. Clearly he was a man on the move - he's credited with some 160 movies. This movie could have stood a director who put a little more thought into things. I also wondered if the budget had something to do with us winding up with too much of Renfield (Klaus Kinski) in his padded cell; the part of the story where Dracula comes via ship is totally eliminated, also not to the good of this.The music is good, Herbert Lom is believable as Van Helsing, Soledad Miranda is pretty mesmerizing as Lucy.Just wish it would have been better. The ending - Dracula's demise - will be especially disappointing to anyone over age 5. The budget's special effects just did not support what the script called for. For whatever reason, Franco didn't take time to think of an alternative way to show this.Nevertheless, Dracula will be back, we can be certain.

I made the mistake of thinking this was a "Hammer" film, because I assumed that any vampire film with Christopher Lee must be one of those, but it is not. That's not to say this is a bad film by any means, because it's a rather decent film, but not great. The other stars include Herbert Lom, who was very good, Klaus Kinski, who was underused, Paul Muller, Maria Rohm, Soledad Miranda, Fred Williams, and Jack Taylor. A sad note is that Miranda(Lucy)was killed in a car accident in late 1970, only a few months after this film came out. Some of the good: grainy atmosphere, creepy music, and Lom's portrayal of Van Helsing. Some of the bad: the Count whispering "Lucy" too many times, no genuine scares, and the weak death of Dracula. I would recommend this film if you're really into the genre, but not if you're looking for real vampire chills. Let me add that I still consider this a decent enough film that had good moments that probably outweighed the bad, and I caught this film completely by chance.

I don't know. I'm a big Jess Franco fan, but this has to be seriously one of his weakest movies, despite being one of the most widely distributed.I honestly don't know WHY it doesn't work. It has all the makings of what should have been a GREAT film. Jess Franco, Christopher Lee, Herbert Lom, Klaus Kinski, Soledad Miranda, and Jack Taylor - all doing a movie based on Bram Stoker's Dracula?! I think it misses in that it could have stood to be more graphic. It's also slow. Too slow. I'm also not the biggest fan of Franco's movies he partnered with producer Harry Allan Towers for, of which this is one. The cinematography is great, the sets look nice, but all and all there is just inspiration missing here.For a good Dracula movie that is close to the book, for my money I'd stick with Francis Ford Coppola's "Bram Stoker's Dracula".

Jess Franco's version of the Bram Stoker classic has Count Dracula as an old count who grows younger whenever he dines on the blood of gorgeous maidens . Bram Stoker's Count Dracula" (1970) turns out to be an acceptable picture directed by Jesus Franco with a good cast as Christopher Lee , Hebert Lom , Maria Rohm and Klaus Kinski . It is a passable and average-budgeted version with splendid players , functional set design and brilliant costumes . The picture begins in a prologue: "Over 50 years ago, Bram Stoker wrote the greatest of all horror stories. Now, for the first time, we retell exactly as he wrote, one of the first--and still the best--tales of the macabre." A young lawyer named Jonathan Harker (Fred Williams) is assigned to go to a creepy castle in the mists of eastern Europe . Harker is captured and imprisoned by a strange character who is accompanied by his bloodsucker girlfriends (Emma Cohen , Jeannine Mestre) . He really is a vampire who lives on through the ages and gone back life . The undead vampire named Dracula (Christopher Lee) comes to England to seduce Mina (Maria Rhom) and Lucy (Soledad Miranda)and inflict havoc in the foreign land . As it is said that Dracula has extraordinary powers , but these supernatural powers have sinister origins ; and this is the first film in which , like in the novel, Dracula begins as an old man and becomes younger as he feeds. Later on , at a Sanitarium outside London: Harker awakens in bed with Dr John Seward (Paul Muller) at his side . Dracula goes London and starts a reign of seduction and horror, draining the life from Mina's closest friend , Lucy . But Dracula has not counted on young Lords (Fred Williams and Jack Taylor) acquiring the assistance of the Vampire hunter (Herbert Lom) .European co-production between various countries as Spain | West Germany | Italy | Liechtenstein . This thrilling as well as terrifying film contains horrifying scenes , chills , lots of gore and red tomato was used for the blood . This version of Dracula is closely based on Bram Stoker's 1897 classic novel of the same title . Adequate version about the famous personage with an European all-star cast , poor cinematography by Manuel Merino though would have been necessary a photography similarly to Hammer Films , glamorous gowns and regular production design , including evocative sights on Victorian London , actually shot in Alicante, Barcelona, Cataluña , Estudios Cinematográficos Balcázar, Esplugues de Llobregat, Barcelona, Cataluña, Spain and Munich, Bavaria, Germany . Christopher Lee, who plays a splendid Dracula, and Herbert Lom, who plays stunningly Dr. Van Helsing , never saw each other during the filming. They shot all their joint scenes separately . Christopher Lee was reportedly tired of playing Dracula and was convinced to join the cast only after being promised that the film would be a faithful adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula novel , the film, however, ultimately made numerous significant changes to the story . Filmmaker Jesús Franco's first choice for the role of Van Helsing was Vincent Price. He was not able to obtain Price due to his exclusive contract with American International Pictures and second choice Dennis Price was forced to withdraw through illness , Franco was able to get his third choice, Herbert Lom, for the role. Although the producer claims that Klaus Kinski was hoodwinked into playing Renfield when producers gave him a script with a fake title, director Jesús Franco says this was not true and he claims that Klaus Kinski ate real flies as Renfield instead of fake ones. Special mention to rousing and powerful musical score composed and conducted by Bruno Nicolai . Interesting script by writers Jesús Franco Erich Kröhnke , Harry Alan Towers as Peter Welbeck, also film producer . Other films retelling the known legend based as originally conceived on this novel are the following : ¨ Dracula¨ (1974) by Dan Curtis with Jack Palance , Simon Ward ,Nigel Davenport , ¨Bram's Stoker Dracula'with David Suchet as Abraham Van Helsing , Marc Warren as Count Dracula and Sophia Myles as Lucy ; the best results to be Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula with Gary Oldman , Winona Ryder , Gary Elwes , Keanu Reeves and Anthony Hopkins and last version ¨Dracula¨2012 by Dario Argento with Rutger Hauer as Abraham Van Helsing , Asia Argento as Lucy , Unax Ugalde as Johnathan Harker and Thomas Kretschmann as Dracula .