Dracula's Daughter in August
26 July 2007

Cult horror fans will know the name of Jess Franco, aka Jesus Franco, aka...oh, more aliases than you've ever seen. You don't believe me? Check out his page on IMDb by clicking here. It's a page that will also give you an idea of his astonishingly prolific output: 187 films since 1957, almost all in the horror genre with a frequent emphasis on sexual content. His 1970 Vampyros Lesbos built a following on its title alone and is considered one of the director's best, while his version of Count Dracula (El Conde Dracula) of the same year was faithful enough to Stoker's original to persuade Christopher Lee, who by then was fed up with playing the Count for Hammer, to take up the lead.

With Dracula's Daughter (La Fille de Dracula 1972) Franco tips his hat to the classic Universal horrors (the 1936 Dracula's Daughter was the direct sequel to the genre-defining 1931 Dracula starring Bela Lugosi). A young woman, Luisa Karlstein, visits her gravely ill grandmother at the family estate. The old women reveals that there is a family curse that has turned them all into vampires. Luisa nonetheless decides to move into the estate and live with her uncle and cousin, but soon finds that she is not immune to the effects of the curse. Shot at the same time and with much of the same cast as Count Dracula, Prisoner of Frankenstein and Erotic Rites of Frankenstein, Dracula's Daughter is one of Franco's most erotic horror films and features cult favourites Anne Libert and Britt Nichols, while Franco himself plays the Van Helsing stand-in Cyril Jefferson.

Dracula's Daughter has been announced for a UK DVD release on 20th August 2007 by Redemption. Extras are limited to trailers and a stills gallery. The price is £9.99.