DRACULA'S WIDOW
1988 film review by Wmpyr
Francis Ford Coppola did a great job with Bram Stoker's Dracula so I was looking forward to this one directed by Francis Ford Coppola's nephew, however let me say this was Chris Coppola's first feature, and this was filmed before Bram Stoker's Dracula. The plot is relatively simple enough, which is a good thing if you ask me. When an eccentric owner of a small wax museum in Hollywood receives an extra crate which has Dracula's wife, Vanessa in it, all the problems begin. If you like gore, there is quite a bit of it. I'm personally not into that, if the gore was there to show some kind of dynamic between how sensual she is and how violent she can be, it would have been much better for me, but I didn't feel that kind of relationship. The main problem though I have to say is with Vanessa herself. The 80s business suit she walks around in the entire duration of the film seemed like a waste of wonderful possibilities. With Dracula's wife, they could have had historical costumes to something along the lines of fantasy and so on. Her personality was also unattractive, with someone like Sylvia Kristel they could have explored a sensual/dominatrix style character, Dracula is a sex symbol, you would assume that his Queen is similar. The yelling and tantrum like parts were not attractive. The scene with the Devil worshippers was memorable and I wish it was explained a bit better. Always nice to see a Van Helsing in a Dracula film, the part where he is reading an old book about Dracula's wife and acts like it's the first time he's ever read that made me raise my brow. Nice to see the main character's GF sleep walking, for some reason I like seeing sleep walking in vampire films. All in all, it had potential, I would like to see a remake!
1988 film review by Wmpyr
Francis Ford Coppola did a great job with Bram Stoker's Dracula so I was looking forward to this one directed by Francis Ford Coppola's nephew, however let me say this was Chris Coppola's first feature, and this was filmed before Bram Stoker's Dracula. The plot is relatively simple enough, which is a good thing if you ask me. When an eccentric owner of a small wax museum in Hollywood receives an extra crate which has Dracula's wife, Vanessa in it, all the problems begin. If you like gore, there is quite a bit of it. I'm personally not into that, if the gore was there to show some kind of dynamic between how sensual she is and how violent she can be, it would have been much better for me, but I didn't feel that kind of relationship. The main problem though I have to say is with Vanessa herself. The 80s business suit she walks around in the entire duration of the film seemed like a waste of wonderful possibilities. With Dracula's wife, they could have had historical costumes to something along the lines of fantasy and so on. Her personality was also unattractive, with someone like Sylvia Kristel they could have explored a sensual/dominatrix style character, Dracula is a sex symbol, you would assume that his Queen is similar. The yelling and tantrum like parts were not attractive. The scene with the Devil worshippers was memorable and I wish it was explained a bit better. Always nice to see a Van Helsing in a Dracula film, the part where he is reading an old book about Dracula's wife and acts like it's the first time he's ever read that made me raise my brow. Nice to see the main character's GF sleep walking, for some reason I like seeing sleep walking in vampire films. All in all, it had potential, I would like to see a remake!
Comments