This is unshamedly nostalgic review: I love Hammer Gothic, and BRIDES OF DRACULA is their best film, a sublime Gothic romance/adventure. Richly romantic
colours, sets and costumes create magnificent and dazzlingly clean fairytale Transylvania, a delicious place for supernatural. Dialogue is wonderful:
"Transylvania, land of dark forests, dread mountains and black, unfathomed lakes. Still the home of magic and devilry as the nineteenth century draws to
it's close. Count Dracula, monarch of all vampires, is dead, but his disciples live on, to spread the cult and corrupt the world." "There's a
wolf down there. And an owl. He's get them all astir, trust him." Redhaired and poutylipped Marianne, dressed in pastel and crimson, is perfect Gothic
heroine: epitome of angelic beauty and purity, she goes to help mentally ill man, and ends to free a vampire! Peter Cushing is best Van Helsing and David Peel,
despite his ludicrous facial expressions in vampire form, is great, too. Yvonne Monlaur, who plays Marianne, has chemistry with both of her leading men.
And how about the exciting finale, where the wind-mill forms a cross? They don´t make like this anymore! Too bad Hammer and Peter Cushing did not make more
adventures of Van Helsing. (Except odd LEGEND OF THE SEVEN GOLDEN VAMPIRES, one of the rare Hammer vampire films where I have glimpsed my watch and hoped it´s
all over and I can go to coffee.)
BRIDES OF DRACULA: 10/10.
