There are vampire movies that sink their teeth into you—and then there’s Daughter of Dracula (1972), which kind of gums your arm a little, shrugs, and wanders off into the fog. Jess Franco directed this exercise in gothic sleepwalking during one of his more “ambitious” phases, meaning he was still pretending to care about narrative structure, or at least enough to justify filming in a spooky old house. The result? A film that manages to be both boring and confusing, like reading a vampire novel translated from Romanian to German to Esperanto and then run through a blender with absinthe and regret.
The film opens with a will reading. You know you’re in for a good time when the first ten minutes of your vampire movie resemble the legal proceedings from a Murder, She Wrote rerun. A mysterious woman named Louise (played by Britt Nichols, who spends most of the film in various states of nudity or torpor) inherits her mother’s estate. Along with it, she gets a mansion full of cobwebs, family secrets, and a last name that practically comes with its own garlic allergy.
Now, Louise is no ordinary heiress—she’s the titular “daughter” of Dracula, though this little plot nugget is treated less like a revelation and more like an awkward family fact, like discovering your uncle collects toenail clippings. She learns about her bloodthirsty legacy with all the enthusiasm of someone being told their taxes are overdue. There’s no shock, no fear, just a vague sense of, “Oh. I guess I drink blood now. Neat.”
But don’t expect any actual Dracula to show up. No cape. No castle. Not even a cameo. The Count is name-dropped like a washed-up rock star from a better franchise, and the film slinks forward without him, limping on a storyline that seems more interested in potted plants and candlelit staircases than actual horror.
The pacing? Imagine molasses being poured over a cold corpse. Scenes drag on forever, often consisting of Louise walking slowly through hallways, staring out windows, or undressing for no narrative reason whatsoever. At one point, she stands in front of a mirror for what feels like half the movie, contemplating her reflection with the intensity of someone trying to remember if they left the stove on.
Franco’s trademark zooms are here in full force, and as usual, they are wielded like a toddler with a sniper rifle. The camera zooms in on eyes, lips, doorknobs, candlesticks—anything that might suggest meaning without actually offering any. He’ll linger on a shot of a curtain like it’s about to deliver a monologue. At one point, the camera zooms into Louise’s mouth during a love scene as if Franco suddenly remembered the film is supposed to be erotic. Spoiler: it’s not.
There is sex, yes—this is Franco, after all—but it’s the kind of joyless, mechanical nudity that feels less like passion and more like a contractual obligation. Britt Nichols and her fellow cast members drift through softcore scenes as if they’re counting ceiling tiles. Even the lesbian vampire elements, which should be steamy at worst and transgressive at best, are shot with all the enthusiasm of a hospital instructional video. It’s sensuality as imagined by someone who’s never actually enjoyed sex but read about it once in a poorly translated French novel.
The dialogue—when it’s not being drowned out by ambient wind noises or Franco’s ever-present jazz flute—is a mess of cryptic proclamations, awkward philosophical questions, and half-muttered lines that seem to have wandered in from a different movie. “She lives between the shadow of the night and the light of the day,” one character mutters, presumably during a blackout caused by the script trying to escape.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a Franco film without the signature musical stylings of someone who’s clearly recording the soundtrack on a broken Casio keyboard in a padded room. The score lurches between eerie harpsichord themes, dissonant jazz stings, and what can only be described as “bored funeral music.” There are entire stretches where the music seems to be arguing with the visuals, like it’s desperately trying to wake the film up while the editor is in a coma.
The plot—if you can still call it that after 45 minutes of softcore aimlessness—attempts to fold in a police investigation subplot. Yes, there are detectives. And yes, they are somehow even less engaged than the vampires. One wears a trench coat and delivers lines like he’s just emerged from dental surgery. The other shows up, interviews a corpse, and disappears. Their presence adds nothing but padding to a film already bloated with padding, like Franco was trying to stretch a short film into a feature using dead air and unresolved subplots.
The murders themselves are toothless. Literally. Louise’s vampirism is represented by an occasional neck nibble and some moaning. No fangs, no blood spurts, no transformations—just a few listless embraces and some post-coital staring into the abyss. The actual death scenes play like soft-focus perfume ads gone horribly wrong.
And the ending? It just sort of happens. No climax, no confrontation, just a shrug of a finale where someone dies, someone else stares blankly, and Franco fades out to black like he’s embarrassed by the whole ordeal. You’ll sit there blinking at the screen, wondering if you fell asleep and dreamed the whole thing or if Franco just forgot to write an ending.
Final Verdict:
Daughter of Dracula is the cinematic equivalent of a long sigh in a dusty room. It has all the elements of a vampire film—gothic mansion, naked heiress, mysterious murders—but none of the energy, suspense, or bite. It’s a Franco fever dream soaked in apathy and bad lighting. The sex isn’t sexy, the horror isn’t scary, and the story isn’t told so much as mumbled through layers of fog and polyester lingerie.
Watch it only if you’re assembling a Franco retrospective and you’ve already seen Vampyros Lesbos twice. Otherwise, spare yourself the charade. This daughter may be undead, but the film’s been dead on arrival since the first zoom.
