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Dracula Prisoner of Frankenstein
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray ALL - America - Severin Films Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (27th February 2024). |
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The Film
 Vampire attacks are on the rise in Transylvania, and local psychiatrist Dr. Seward (A Quiet Place to Kill's Alberto Dalbés) gets constant calls to prevent the victims from rising again by piercing the corpses' eyes with a silver spike – a method first shown onscreen in Mario Bava's Black Sunday – and he is able to make use of psychic medium patient María (The Cannibal Man's Paca Gabaldón) to steer him in the obvious direction: Castle Dracula looming above the village in the foggy mountains. There, Seward drives a stake into the heart of sleeping Count Dracula (The Perverse Countess' Howard Vernon) whose remains turn into the carcass of a bat rather than a human skeleton. No sooner does Seward rid the area of the scourge than Dr. Frankenstein (The Haunted House of Horror's Dennis Price) arrives and and his hulking servant Morpho (The Case of the Scorpion's Tail's Luis Barboo) resurrect the vampire with the blood of a local showgirl (A Rope for a Bastard's Josyane Gibert) abducted by his own "handmade" monster (Rest in Pieces' Fernando Bilbao). With Seward put out of commission by an attack from the monster, and María newly-vampirized, Frankenstein believes that he has Dracula at his command to fulfill his desire to become "Master of the Beyond" with an army of vampires to enslave mortals. Little does Frankenstein realize that another of Dracula's vampire acolytes (Tombs of the Blind Dead's Britt Nichols) has been doing some hunting of her own and helping Dracula rebuild his strength. As Seward recuperates in hiding at the local gypsy camp in the shadow of the castle, he learns that gypsy witch Amira (Lovers of Devil's Island's Geneviève Robert) is planning to manipulate the forces of darkness herself and call upon another monster to fight fire with fire. Following up the trouble Harry Alan Towers production of the proposed "faithful" adaptation of the Bram Stoker novel in El Conde Drácula and the more psychedelic Vampyros Lesbos – ostensibly an adaptation of the Stoker short story/deleted chapter "Dracula's Guest" but actually a loser but more stimulating riff on the novel – Dracula Prisoner of Frankenstein is a wildly experimental (sometimes recklessly so) take on monster versus monster films from Universal's second horror boom like House of Frankenstien, House of Dracula, Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman, and even perhaps Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. Virtually silent apart from the bare minimum of expository dialogue, sound effects, and narration – the amount of the latter varying depending upon the language dub – the film plays like a silent film driven by occasionally striking compositions, a lot of zoom shots, and the scoring of Bruno Nicholai consisting of repurposed tracks from both the aforementioned El Conde Drácula and Franco's Marquis de Sade adaptation Justine. While the film certainly is sloppy in some respects and the plot (such as it is) is full of holes – how does neither Seward nor Frankenstein think to open up that other coffin in plain sight in Dracula's crypt. Once Frankenstein makes his plans known via narration, both Morpho and the monster have little to do, shambling around in the background while Vernon's portrayal of Dracula is just as baffling. While in some depictions of Dracula, his silent characterization could be reasoned as he sees no reason to speak to people who he regards as nothing more than prey; however, here, Frankenstein tells us that he has the vampire completely under his command by the threat of staking him again despite the Count's mesmeric powers, and Vernon's Count just silently follows orders while Nichols' secondary vampire does the work of undermining Frankenstein who seems to surmise that Dracula has been "ungrateful" for not acquiescing to his commands (when that seems to have been all he does onscreen). Indeed, there is a strangely passive tone to the entire proceedings, starting with how easily Seward gains entry into Dracula's castle and stakes him followed by the English export version's added diary entry in which Frankenstein speaks of the events to come in the past tense – along with confusing identifying Dr. Jonathan Seward as "Dr. Emmanuel Seward" – to the ending in which Seward stirs up a torch-wielding mob and leads them to the castle and arrive to the aftermath that leaves ambiguous the fates of Frankenstein and the werewolf (stuntman Brandy) summoned by Amira to destroy the other monsters in a seeming nod to Paul Naschy whose seventies sex/horror Gothic films Franco dismissed but almost certainly made his own stab at Universal-inspired horror possible. The resulting film feels less like Universal and more like the late night/early morning horror host TV show segments that might have introduced those older film; and that is perhaps appropriate as the near bloodless, sexless film finds counterpoint in the companion feature The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein, a sexed up comic strip of a film in which Frankenstein's monster is violently-appropriated by magician Cagliostro (Vernon) with the aim of siring a master race of monsters. Material for the film was collected during shoots in Portugal, Spain, and France during the productions of the Robert de Nesle (Beyond Love and Evil) productions The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein and The Demons which shared most of the cast along with Daughter of Dracula – which began life as a remake of Franco's sixties Gothic thriller The Sadistic Baron von Klaus which was transformed into a vampire film during production – which reunited the Vernon/Nichols vampire pairing and also featured Dalbes as a police inspector, Dracula's first victim in this film Anne Libert (Sins of the Flesh), and frequent Franco composer Daniel White (Shining Sex) who appears in Dracula Prisoner of Frankenstein as the innkeeper. At worst, Dracula Prisoner of Frankenstein is a mishmash of footage captured on-the-fly and half-baked ideas created in the editing room; at best, it is a stimulating concoction of themes and situations that found their origins in earlier Franco films and would inform later ones over which he had more creative control. 
Video
Released theatrically in Spain and France in 1972, Dracula Prisoner of Frankenstein took a few years to find distribution elsewhere while the English export version – prepared by American actor-turned-dubbing director Richard McNamara who remained in Italy after the war – was only released theatrically in Australia and possibly Canada (where it was double-billed with Werewolf Shadow). The English version finally turned up stateside in the eighties on Charles Band's Wizard Video under the title "The Screaming Dead" in a panned-and-scanned transfer while a letterboxed version could be found as a Japanese VHS import. While the English export version of Erotic Rites of Frankenstein featured the nudity shot for the French version that was cut and replaced in the Spanish version – the more sexual The Demons and Daughter of Dracula were not released in Spain until the video era – no versions of Dracula Prisoner of Frankenstein thus far have featured the nude takes evidenced by stills which might have been shot just for publicity. The German version "Die Nacht Der Offenen Särge" was released on VHS by adult label Mike Hunter Video and featured a nude shot of Libert on the back but revealed that the German version was based on the English export version and merely replaced the title and changed some character names during the dubbing. While the rights holder was able to provide materials for new anamorphic transfers of Daughter of Dracula, The Demons, and the softer Spanish cut of Erotic Rites of Frankenstein during the DVD era, their master for Dracula Prisoner of Frankenstein was a non-anamorphic 1.85:1 video master of the Spanish version which was less generously-framed than the aforementioned Japanese cassette and served as the source for the Spanish Divisa DVD release, the American Image Entertainment DVD, and the 16:9-upscaled British Tartan Video release. When the French erotic version of Erotic Rites of Frankenstein debuted in a new transfer on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber, it was hoped that the fabled French erotic version of Dracula Prisoner of Frankenstein would also turn up; however, the film's Blu-ray debut in Germany from Colosseo Film turned out to be a semi-restored scan of an Italian theatrical print that was an improvement on the versions that came before but still damaged and possessing an inherent softness of the original low-lit, flary Techniscope photography – in contrast to the considerably slicker-looking Erotic Rites of Frankenstein and The Demons shot on the same locations by Raúl Artigot (Horror of the Zombies) – which was also the familiar version.  With the negative apparently lost and the nude scenes possibly only used for publicity but not in any edits of the film, Severin Films' 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 2.51:1 widescreen Blu-ray is a composite of Spanish, French, and German release prints – the fact that the presentation starts with the Italian restoration company that also introduced the German Blu-ray suggests either they are the rights owners or some of the Italian print was also used – and it still looks soft but it is a substantial upgrade to the German release. The few jump cuts in that version are absent here, the French credits have been restored, and the greenish bias of the earlier transfers is corrected here with the bluer tinge to the new transfer looking sometimes moody, sometimes like cheap day-for-night tinting (although it certainly makes Vernon's Dracula look paler and less like a green goblin). Although French material was used, there is no nudity – the French version has actually not been lost just not utilized as a French-language version had played on Canadian television in the nineties – and there are still some rough shots that seem less like damage and more like haste in the filming.
Audio
Audio options include a lossless English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono track along with Dolby Digital 2.0 mono tracks in French, German, Italian, and Spanish. They are all of similar technical quality; however, Severin has also gone through the effort of including English subtitle tracks that correspond to each of the audio tracks. While the English version added an entry from Frankenstein's diary that is absent here because the visual material is as well, each of the other language tracks also feature some narration added to the sparse dialogue. The German track is based on the English version, however, it rechristens Dracula as "Count Sartana" and Frankenstein as "Dr. Exorzio" despite both of their names having been onscreen in German prints due to the presence of the diary entry added to the English version. For some reason, the English SDH subtitles refer to Frankenstein during one of his voiceovers with the character designation "Rainier" even though he is actually referred to later in the dialogue as Frankenstein by Amira the gypsy (and no effort has been made in the film to suggest that Frankenstein is posing as someone else since he does not interact with any of the local or Seward). The French and Spanish tracks are similar in content as illustrated by the English subtitles. 
Extras
Extras start off with "Prisoner of Franco-Stein" (42:12), an interview with film historian and author of the two-volume Franco tomes "Murderous Passions: The Delirious Cinema of Jesús Franco" and "Flowers of Perversion: The Delirious Cinema of Jess Franco" Stephen Thrower who frames the film in the context of his Towers films and producer interference and the flurry of lower-budget productions that followed in 1970 and 1971 where a new style emerged and how Franco's inability to focus on the film at hand because he was already planning out the next one both hampered and energized such productions which seemed to start out as a concept and skipped the drafting stages directly to filming. Thrower puzzles out the plot and surmises that part of Franco's style was in not filling in the gaps in the plot's connective tissue when he encountered them during the cutting (taking into account the staggered shooting of the film alongside other productions) and discusses both the moments where the film delivers, the moments that stand out as distractions, as well as Franco's deliberate efforts to obfuscate identification of the time period or the setting with a mix of period and modern styles as well as signs and text onscreen in different languages including made-up vaguely Turkish and Slavic words. He also puzzles over the performances of Vernon and Barboo which seem to unintentionally upstage the tone of the film. The discussing also includes the life of actor Price and where he was at this point in his career before his untimely death. On the other hand, no mention is made of the erotic stills that exist for the film and whether a nude version does or ever did exist (the aforementioned German Blu-ray did feature the stills in a photo gallery in the extras).  "In the Land of Franco - Part 10" (18:26) is part of the ongoing series of locations visits by Thrower with various Franco associates, this one including Alain Petit who provides background on his casting in Midnight Party and his baffling experience shooting the nightclub scenes with lyrics made up on the spot by Franco and then trying to synchronize them with White and a different band in post-production. They visit the locations of the house used in the film and the former site of the night club as well as locations used in Shining Sex and the unfinished film "Mandinga". This installment is not included in the feature-length assembly of the earlier installments available on streaming services as "In the Land of Franco". The disc also includes the Spanish opening credit sequence (2:10) which features an introductory text to the story attributed to Franco's fictitious pulp novelist alter ego David Khune which was not included in any other versions – necessitating the added narration by Dr. Frankenstein – and the extreme fading and reddish hue give an indication of the state of the materials and why the text was not integrated into the feature presentation while the video source of the deleted scene from English language version (1:12) is also of poor quality and possibly ripped from the German VHS since the U.S. VHS release was cropped and the Japanese tape would have had subtitles layed over the scrolling text. The disc closes with a little-seen Italian theatrical trailer (3:20) for the film. 
Packaging
The disc is housed with a slipcover reproducing some of the international artwork on both sides while the keep case cover reproduces the more familiar artwork.
Overall
At worst, Dracula Prisoner of Frankenstein is a mishmash of footage captured on-the-fly and half-baked ideas created in the editing room; at best, it is a stimulating concoction of themes and situations that found their origins in earlier Franco films and would inform later ones over which he had more creative control.
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