Some movies are misunderstood. Some are underrated. And then there’s Dracula, Prisoner of Frankenstein, a film so proudly incompetent, so aggressively inert, it makes you wonder if Jess Franco lost a bet with Satan. This 1972 “film” — and I use that term as loosely as Franco used camera tripods — is what happens when you give a horror director three iconic monsters, a couple of castles, and absolutely no adult supervision. Imagine the Universal Monsters rebooted by a narcoleptic art student during a fog machine fire drill. That’s Dracula, Prisoner of Frankenstein.
Let’s start with the title: a complete lie. Dracula is barely a character. He’s more of a bloodthirsty decorative plant — stiff, unblinking, and always framed in soft lighting like he’s about to drop an album of moody synth ballads. He doesn’t speak, doesn’t emote, and is less a “prisoner” of Frankenstein than a mildly inconvenienced houseguest.
And Frankenstein? No, not the scientist. We’re talking about the monster. Although you wouldn’t know it from looking — because Franco’s version appears to be made out of leftover upholstery and the sadness of forgotten Halloween masks. He stumbles around in a leisure suit, occasionally grunting like he’s lost his Uber. The monster’s entire personality could be summed up as “moldy luggage with fists.”
Oh, but the plot! A chaotic stew of Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, a werewolf (yes, he’s here too — because screw restraint), a mad doctor, and a mute girl who wanders around like she lost her script. It begins — kind of — with Dracula sucking blood, Frankenstein’s monster being reanimated (again), and Dr. Frankenstein himself, now played by Dennis Price, scheming to rule the world by controlling Dracula. Why? Don’t ask. This is Franco logic, where things happen because the smoke machine was already rented and the actors were already naked.
There is no dialogue in the film. No, really. None. People grunt, shriek, breathe loudly, and stare into the middle distance like they just realized they forgot their lines… which, in this case, is because there are no lines. Franco decided to make a silent horror movie — except instead of the haunting elegance of Nosferatu, we get something closer to a student art project filmed in the basement of a castle-themed miniature golf course.
To make up for the lack of talking, the film is packed with music. And by “music,” I mean one continuous loop of shrill organs, distorted jazz shrieks, and what sounds like a synth having a seizure. The score is relentless. Overbearing. Like a foghorn tied to a broken carousel. You will beg for silence. You will crave death. Your ears will file a restraining order.
Let’s talk about the monsters, shall we?
Dracula is played by Howard Vernon, who looks like Bela Lugosi’s understudy for a high school play. He stands around in a cape, occasionally leans over to bite someone, and otherwise does nothing. You could replace him with a cardboard cutout and it would change nothing except improve the pacing.
Frankenstein’s monster lumbers through the film like he’s late for a dentist appointment. His makeup looks like it was applied with a trowel in a wind tunnel. Every time he’s onscreen, you can hear the sound of Boris Karloff rolling in his grave and lighting a cigarette out of pure rage.
The werewolf shows up halfway through, kills someone, and then promptly dies. He’s played by a man who clearly has no idea he’s in a movie. His transformation scene consists of someone smearing him with hair and shining a flashlight in his eyes. Blink and you’ll miss him. Then blink again and you’ll realize nothing’s happened for twenty minutes.
And then there’s Dr. Frankenstein, the titular mad scientist, played by Dennis Price with the energy of a man who’s halfway through a ham sandwich and halfway done with his career. He wanders around a decrepit castle, tinkering with blinking lights and tubes that make no sound and serve no function. Every so often, he yells into a void, points at Dracula like he’s blaming him for a parking ticket, and calls it a day.
The cinematography, meanwhile, is pure Franco: handheld zooms into sweaty faces, unmotivated pans over cheap décor, and frequent shots of staircases for no reason whatsoever. The man loved staircases. If there were Oscars for “Most Baffling Use of Spiral Architecture,” Franco would’ve swept the category.
Most of the film is just characters walking. Or standing. Or standing and walking — sometimes within the same shot. You’ll get entire scenes of Dracula walking down a hallway, Frankenstein walking through a graveyard, and Dr. Frankenstein walking down another hallway. At some point, the film becomes a gothic Fitbit ad. The real horror? All the steps.
And don’t expect coherent editing to save you. Scenes crash into each other like drunks at a masquerade party. Characters appear, disappear, and reappear with new hairstyles. At one point, I swear the film plays the same shot of Dracula three times in a row — just to make sure you’re paying attention. Spoiler: you won’t be.
The film’s climax — if you can call it that — involves the monsters fighting each other in slow motion while a woman screams in a dungeon and Dr. Frankenstein flips switches like he’s trying to reboot a Windows 95 PC. Then everything explodes, or ends, or maybe the editor gave up and just faded to black while sobbing softly.
Final Verdict: 0.5 out of 5 confused capes
Dracula, Prisoner of Frankenstein is less a movie and more a fever dream shared by people trapped in a wax museum during a power outage. It’s like watching your childhood Halloween decorations act out Hamlet after being soaked in gin. There’s no story, no stakes, no logic — just moaning, mumbling, and Franco filming anything that wandered in front of his camera that day.
Watch it if you’ve lost a bet. Or if you’ve got a vampire fetish and zero standards. Otherwise, avoid this creature-feature train wreck like Dracula avoids garlic and coherent scripts.
