The Dracula Saga

There are a lot of Dracula movies made around this time that were great . And this is not one them. This Dracula sequel unlike most Dracula sequels is not scary. It is badly written. Badly acted. It has an awful ending. Don't wast your money. Don't wast your time. Don't see this movie. It is about Dracula trying find his descendants who don't know he his a vampire. He trying to turn them into vampires. This could have been a good movie. If it was not so badly acted. So badly written and had such an awful ending. Pooh pooh, pooh pooh, pooh pooh, pooh pooh, and pee pee to. Don't see this movie. Don't see it. Don't see it Don't see it.

Director Léon Klimovsky is probably best known for his collaborations with the Spanish Horror/Exploitation/Cult icon Paul Naschy, most notably for what is maybe also Naschy's most famous film, "La Noche De Walpurgis" (aka. "The Werewolf vs. the Vampire Woman", 1971), which is the most widely known of fourteen films in which Naschy played the Werewolf Waldemar Daninsky. Klimovsky made quite a bunch of slightly bizarre Gothic Horror films, which are not all the same quality. Even though Naschy is not involved in this film, "La Saga De Los Drácula" aka. "The Saga of the Draculas" aka. "The Dracula Saga" of 1973 is certainly one of Klimovsky's better films. "La Saga De Los Drácula" is a very different approach to the common Dracula topic which is interesting, to say the least. This time, it is not merely the famous Count, but an entire family of noble blood-suckers that cause fear in the Transylvanian mountains.

The pregnant young Berta (Tina Sáinz) and her husband are moving to Transsylvania to be with Tina's family, the patriarch of which is her grandfather - Count Dracula (Narciso Ibáñez Menta). The elderly Count lives with his three gorgeous brides (Helga Liné, Betsabé Ruiz and Maria Kosty) as well as some other relatives. Needless to say that the Dracula family's favorite beverage isn't raspberry juice, which the innocent Berta and her husband are entirely unaware of...

"La Saga De Los Drácula" is an overall very interesting and highly atmospheric film that bears more surprises and unexpected elements than one might think. Spanish Gothic Horror films such as Klimovsky's usually have a very particular inimitable charm to them, and "La Saga De Los Drácula" a good example for that. Even though the budget obviously wasn't gigantic, the atmosphere is eerily beautiful, and the plot is quite original. The female cast members are entirely gorgeous, especially the red-headed Helga Liné, who is known for her (often sexy) roles in other European Gothic Horror productions including "Nightmare Castle", "Horror Rises From the Tomb", "Las Garras De Lorelei", "Mio Caro Assassino" and others. As it is to be expected, the film includes its share of nudity, sleaze and gore. Narciso Ibáñez Menta is a very unusual (since very old, and comparably un-villainous) Count Dracula, which isn't a bad thing; on the contrary, this different version of the most famous of Vampires contributes to the film's originality. The cinematography is elegant as in all Klimovsky films, and the music by Johann Sebastian Bach fits the film amazingly well, especially the harpsichord parts.

Overall, "La Saga De Los Drácula" is a highly original Vamprie film that does more than to simply deliver what is expected, and highly recommendable to my fellow Eurohorror buffs.

This is another film I had never heard of until recently; being a devotee' of both the vampire subgenre and the "Euro-Cult" style I was instantly intrigued, especially since the copy I came across promised to be of a reasonably high quality, having been released on DVD through BCI – unfortunately, though, I had to make do with the substandard English-dubbing since the original Spanish version carried no accompanying subtitles! I was nonetheless rather disappointed by the end result, even if I should have been forewarned of this via the other titles I had watched from the director involved!; the fact that only one member of the cast (the ever-luscious Helga Line') was familiar to me did not help matters.

Incidentally, the general goofiness on display reminded me I had a number of vintage Mexi-Horror efforts still to catch up with; indeed, the film starts off with a truly weird scene in which the heroine (a descendant of the Draculas) dreams she is being literally menaced by a bat-man! There are several more scenes in this vein: one where it seems that all the inhabitants of a village are impaired in some way (hunchbacked, lame, half-blind, etc.), not to mention the presence of Dracula Jr. as a horrific Cyclops with webbed fingers! Bafflingly, while the seemingly obtuse villagers keep commending the Dracula family to the new arrival, they are surprised by this outburst of vampire attacks...duh!

For this reason, the entire family looks upon the heroine as the last hope of the vampire bloodline (even if she is not one herself), since the girl is pregnant by her lanky blond husband; when the couple finally arrive at Castle Dracula, she asks the keeper to show her the tomb of her grandmother…where the coffins of the current members of the family are also plainly in sight, which she obviously finds not a little odd! Despite the expected emphasis on nudity (this was probably yet another example of an "International Version") and ghoulishness (with the color scheme intentionally on the dreary side), the film is both plodding (feeling much longer than it actually is) and slapdash (though intermittent 'filmed-through-a-gauze' shots seem at the very least to be intentional, albeit superfluous, or else inherent in the negative!).

Ultimately, one regrets the film not being somewhat better than it is, as the script appeared to be striving for something more than the usual blood-sucking fare: the whole ROSEMARY'S BABY (1968)-like subplot, the melancholic/philosophical tone adopted by the atypically elderly Count (though he reverts to camp at the very end when his disembodied head breaks up into laughter!), not to mention a climax in which the leading lady goes berserk and becomes the axe-wielding executioner of her own brood (even if she is herself mortally wounded in the massacre)…though it all contrives to keep the Dracula name alive (after all) by feeding the infant with the dripping blood of its own mother!

Count Dracula's granddaughter and her husband are invited to visit Grampa Drac and the family. She is pregnant and he wants an heir to carry on the family and their vampire ways. Funnily she does not look very pregnant until further on into the film. Set in Eastern Europe but the Spanish locations look Spanish, although these plus the costumes and interior sets do make it a rather colourful, costume movie. There are several pretty females who easily shed their clothes (breasts only, plus one male bottom), plus some cheap looking gore.Dracula does already have a male heir in the castle but years of inbreeding has produced a freak, one of the film's most memorable features. The Dracula Saga is no classic Dracula movie but to those who like Euro curiosities then it is worth a watch.

The Dracula Saga is a rather ragged attempt at a costume horror movie that sadly fails on more levels than it succeeds. The story follows a young couple travelling to a remote castle in central Europe to visit the remaining family relations of the wife, who is pregnant. Along the way villagers warn them that the castle is evil, and dead bodies are found along the way with neck wounds. Nothing very original there! On arrival at the castle, all manner of strange things happen as the truth about the family background is revealed...which should come as no surprise, bearing in mind the title of the movie! There is a fair amount of nudity, with lots of female cast members removing their blouses, and some gruesome action as well, especially at the movie's climax.

Unfortunately the enjoyment of all this is hampered by some very basic shoddiness. Although Deimos Films have found a beautiful clean print, and colours are rich and clear, a lot of shots are out of focus. No amount of remastering can correct badly focused photography, and it really shows. Several shots also have a gauze-like mesh effect overlaid on them, which at first I thought was a technical issue, but in reflection it might have been a failed attempt by the director to add atmosphere. The acting is not very good, the English language dub is truly awful, and in another bizarre lapse of continuity, the heroine clearly wears different wigs in different scenes throughout the story!

I suppose this accounts for why Leon Klimovsky never made it as a big name horror director. Having a stunning authentic castle as a setting and adding lots of bare boobs does not make up for all the other budgetary and artistic shortcomings. Even European beauty Helga Line (in a minor role) is wasted here. I do love Deimos' presentation of these Euro horrors, they do very well with the quality, packaging and DVD features. This is just not one of the better movies.