Daughter of Dracula

Jess Franco's Dracula's Daughter is a bit of a combination of genre styles that were popular in 1972. Its part lesbian vampire film, part giallo and part sexploitation. In fairness it isn't all that successful in any of those sub-genres. The reason I guess is a common one when it comes to Franco and that's that it seems to have been knocked together too quickly for its own good. You can't help but think that there's the basis of a decent film here but it ultimately doesn't add up to a great deal.

The vampire part of the story is never developed very clearly and there aren't any actual scary horror moments. In fact poor Howard Vernon plays Count Dracula but never even gets to get out of his coffin. I haven't really got any good idea why this is so but that's just the way it is. Similarly, the giallo thread is sort of there but at no point does Franco go to the trouble of generating any actual suspense (does he ever?) so it really doesn't add an awful lot and ultimately promises more than it delivers. While from a sexploitation perspective I can't say it was too erotic, the titillation is strictly forgettable. Sometimes Franco really needs a great leading lady like Soledad Miranda to make this kind of stuff work but he doesn't have anyone of that high calibre here unfortunately.

It's not a complete wash out though. There is some decent photography at times, and the locations are pretty nice. While the typical Franco weirdness is always sort of interesting to watch. This is not one of his better films. Having said that it sure isn't one of his worst either. I guess ultimately it's one that can only really be recommended to Franco fans; for everyone else, enter at your own risk.