Count Dracula's Great Love

3/2/19741h 25m

Theatrical Release (US)

~ Sharing his hunger for female flesh was his thirst for human blood... ~

Overview:

Four women spend the night in an old deserted sanitarium on a mountain. They each in turn fall into the the evil hands of a doctor…

Director:

Javier Aguirre

Status:

Released

Language:

Spanish

Buget:

$0.00

Revenue:

$0.00

Key words:

vampire
torture
gothic horror
falling down stairs
lesbian sex
axe murder

Cast

Paul Naschy

~ as ~

Count Dracula / Dr. Wendell Marlow

Haydée Politoff

~ as ~

Karen

Rosanna Yanni

~ as ~

Senta

Ingrid Garbo

~ as ~

Marlene

Mirta Miller

~ as ~

Elke

Víctor Barrera

~ as ~

Imre Polvi

Álvaro de Luna

~ as ~

Porteador

José Manuel Martín

~ as ~

Porteador

Susana Latour

~ as ~

Victim in Karen's dream - Image in Negative

Julia Peña

~ as ~

Peasant woman

View full cast & crew

Reviews (1)

Wuchak
Written 7 month(s) ago
6
Spanish cabin-in-the-woods, except it’s castle-in-the-woods and the monster is Drac

In the Tihuța Pass of the Carpathian Mountains north of Transylvania, a stagecoach consisting of five travelers, one male and four females, breaks down and they have no recourse but to seek sanctuary at a nearby sanitorium. They are welcomed by Doctor Marlowe (Paul Naschy), but could he really be...

"Count Dracula’s Great Love" (1973), aka “Cemetery Girls,” is basically a Spanish sequel to Hammer’s Dracula flicks up to “Scars of Dracula.” It’s most reminiscent of “Dracula, Prince of Darkness,” but also contains bits that bring to mind “The Satanic Rites of Dracula,” which was released after this one.

Naschy was of course the king of Spanish horror from the late 60s to the 2000s. This was his only stab at playing Dracula and the first cinematic depiction of the Count in a more romantic light, which would influence Frank Langella’s 1979 version and Coppola’s 1992 movie. Here, Paul sorta looks like Brando when he was younger.

Haydée Politoff stands out on the female front with her glorious locks of auburn hair. She ends up being the main female character but, ironically, Naschy didn’t ‘click’ with her.

Interestingly, this is essentially a cabin-in-the-woods flick, as pointed out in my title blurb. The ‘cabin’ just happens to be a castle or, more specifically, a sanitorium; and the era just happens to be the early 1900s. There’s even a skinny-dipping sequence.

If you’re in the mood for a Hammer-esque Dracula flick with crumbling castles, eldritch woods, stagecoaches, spooky rumors spoken in hushed tones, women in Victorian apparel, bloodsucking vampires, Dracula’s ‘brides,’ diabolical rituals and female breasts, this fills the bill. The ending’s unique and I loved it, but there are some questionable things, like the corny booming voice that curiously comes out of nowhere and the overkill top nudity (which smacks of shallow exploitation).

It runs 1 hour, 25 minutes, and was shot in Madrid.

GRADE: B-