 Hello and welcome to today's edition of Frightfully Forgotten Horror Movies and today we're gonna be doing a Patreon request. Eric Wilson would like us to do 1936's Dracula's Daughter, the first ever sequel to the original 1931 Dracula. But before we get started what are we drinking today? Very fittingly we're drinking Carfax Abbey Ale. Dracula's Daughter was directed by Lambert Hillier. He did tons of ships since going back all the way to what 1917 or whatever. So he was one of the pioneers basically of film and one of the things he's notable for is doing some of the first screen depictions of Batman in those 1940's serials. Oh those are bad. Batman's costume is all the shitty and everything. They don't even have a Batmobile as just a car. They're all on some low budget. This movie stars Gloria Holden as Dracula's daughter and actually funny enough she didn't even want to do the role because she thought she would be typecast as like a horror movie actor just like Bella Lugosi and Boris Karloff were but no she wasn't. She pretty much did anything but horror after this movie. Edward Van Sloan is in this and he is in all those original Universal movies. He's in the original Dracula, he's in the original Frankenstein, he's in the original Mummy and again his filmography goes way back to like the Silent Era too. And Otto Kruger is in this. That's the only person I know that has got the actually Kruger for a last name. No relation to Freddy. Dracula's daughter starts off directly after the ending of the original movie. A minute later. Yeah exactly like right after. There's two cops and they're winding down a staircase and they come upon a body and it turns out to be Renfield who's dead. They also see a body that has a stake in it. There's an old man. I did this. He just comes out and admits it and it turns out that it's Dracula's body with a stake in it and of course well he killed him right. They haul this Von Helsing back to the station and he admits everything and he also tells them his story right. His fantastical story. Nobody believes him of course. They think he's a fucking crackpot and they end up taking the two bodies back. Something in the cells like ah there's never been a rat in this cell but you can see something moving like under the soil like oh yeah what's in there. This woman comes in. Can I see the bodies like no you can't. Shows him this ring that hypnotizes him and puts him in this big trance. It then cuts to a scene where there's this big bonfire. There's this woman doing this this like ritual enchanting. This is Dracula's daughter putting him to final rest in the hopes that by doing this she will be relieved of these urges that she's been getting to kill and to drink blood. We then see this woman walking the streets and she comes upon this guy and he turns around and she hypnotizes him right with that ring and she gets herself another victim. So obviously this this ritualistic cleanse thing hasn't worked. We then get introduced to a psychiatrist named Jeffrey. Is that like some sick hunting club or whatever with his Scottish friend? He's super Scottish. You can barely understand what he's saying. And the secretary pulls up and we've got another case. You must get back to London. So Von Helsing actually summoned the psychiatrist to his aid and we find out that the psychiatrist Jeffrey used to be a student of Von Helsing and they're quite close. Jeffrey's like well I can't get you out of this mess besides you claiming that you're insane. That's the only way because you admit it to murder. Yeah it doesn't matter what your fucking story is. Well he's in London he attends this kind of like a high society party. Who shows up is Dracula's daughter but she's going by the name of Countess Celeska. He starts talking about his work and how he can relieve people from their addictions and she kind of aww. He might be able to help me get rid of my addiction to killing and to drinking blood. So they meet privately later. Jeffrey starts to tell her all the way you have to battle addiction is to not avoid your temptation but actually confront it and then deny it. So I put it right in front of you and then say no. Easier said than done especially when you need blood to live. Countess Celeska tries this out. She puts it to the test and she gets her manservant. Zander? That Benicio del Toro got it. Finds this woman who needs money and is cold and needs a place to stay and offers her. My mistress needs a model to paint and you'd make a perfect subject and lures her over and she starts getting undressed and everything. It's kind of a little risqué. Risqué at the time. Can't deny the temptation. She actually goes in and drinks this woman's blood. This woman is found and she's catatonic and they take her to the hospital. This is the second victim they found now with the pinpricks on the neck and it's like hmm kind of sounds a lot like Van Helsing's story over here. So they get Jeffrey to hypnotize her to bring her out of this coma and tell them what happened to her and she starts talking about this mysterious dark woman that brought me to her house and wanted to drink my blood. Van Helsing is saying that this should happen. Maybe it's kind of true. Dracula's daughter at this point knows she can't beat this. She can't beat the vampirism so she's got to accept it and she needs a mate and she really is taking a liking to the psychiatrist here Jeffrey. So she kidnaps Jeffrey's secretary, takes her back to Transylvania to lure him there so she can turn him into a vampire too. So Jeffrey enlists Basil Humphrey from Scotland Yard and Van Helsing who's now pretty much free. Just let him go to go rescue his secretary Janet from Dracula's daughter and that's we're gonna end the plot. So if you want to see how the movie ends keep watching and we might actually spoil it for you later on because yeah the movie is like a hundred years old almost so if you haven't fucking seen it. If you haven't seen it watch it now and then come back. The first thing that we got to mention about this is how completely different this movie is from the original Dracula right this movie takes a complete 180 they don't follow the same formula the same path that the first one does right take this in a completely new and fresh direction for the time. Sequels weren't really a thing this is the second universal sequel I think. Bride of Frankenstein came out the year before so there was no kind of cookie cutter sequel thing formula at the time which is refreshing this movie was only five years after the original and how different it is like how much they've already improved on the craft of filmmaking in five years. The original Dracula is a classic and a lot of people love it. It tastes really slow. There's no music. There's no music and there's not much humor at all. It fills all those gaps that was missing from the original so this has fantastic music which hits you right away. It's like ah yeah it starts music. It starts like ah thank god there's music in this one and it's that classic universal big orchestra music. It's paced really quick edited really quick. There's not much downtime with like dead spots. There's no fluff in the story either like it hits home quick everything is poignant in this movie and relates directly to the story. The dialogue is really snappy and back and forth like almost like British comedy style in a way huge difference from the original and it's a breath of fresh air in my opinion. It seems like they were taking a bit of a chance kudos to them because they could have and probably maybe they should have followed the same you know depending on on how much money they wanted to make on it right but they wanted to do something new and fresh so good for them on that. Yeah like you look at everything about this movie like all the stuff we already mentioned plus the fact that Bella Lugosi was not involved whatsoever in the sequel. The marquee name that Bella Lugosi had at the time. Nah we don't need him or he didn't want to do it one of the two but either way it's very interesting that like even for him to be in the beginning as a cameo in the caskets with the stake in his heart so they could put his name on the credits or even in a flashback they completely shed his name from anything to do with it which is interesting especially for a sequel and one thing we have to mention too about this movie which is pretty blatant if you have a brain in your fucking skull is that this movie is just loaded with all sorts of themes social issues addiction the movie is called Dracula's daughter so right off the bat this is about women this is about females this is no longer about Dracula now we're taking this in a different direction it's pretty obvious in this movie that they're saying something about females roles in society almost every woman in this movie on the same level as a man yeah or stronger or stronger Jeffrey's secretary Janet she's always putting him in his place she's driving the car he doesn't know how to tie a tie she has to tie it for him she's like wearing the pants in a way she pisses him off so much you're fired she's like I already wrote up my resignation then something happens and he's like I need you no I don't think so yeah yes like so it's great that there's a lot of strong women in here that don't take no bullshit from men in 1936 that's kind of ahead of its time Dracula's daughter kind of manipulates in death and like the secretary for example manipulates in life it's sort of it's very that's very true yeah all the males in this with power with positions of power officers you know Scotland yard policemen they're all idiots yeah bumbling you're all bumbling idiots in there and they are the comedic relief which is very interesting you know that's what this movie is saying about men and women this movie also has a lot to say about an addiction essentially right these urges that she has she has to kill but she doesn't want to she hates it she wants to be rid of these feelings but she just cannot find a way she thinks that the psychiatrist will help her and that's saying something maybe about psychiatrist and like yeah you think this person can help you but they're just trying to tell you how to think a different way yeah it doesn't change you you the way you're made up the way you come out of the womb the way your brain is wired yeah doesn't fucking change there's no quick fix right so basically Zaleska is looking for a quick fix and just isn't there she's a vampire she needs this to live like she just can't give up blood and killing or else she will die you know people who go to AA will always say i'm a recovering alcoholic i'm not recovered i'm recovering you'll always be recovering until you die because it's just the way you are you can't change that yeah you'll always be addicted to this thing and the only escape really is death like you'll be fighting it the rest of your life and that's kind of the way the movie ends benicio del toro sand or kills her and you don't know if it's a mercy killing or if you don't know if it's because he's had enough of her shit but that's the only thing that will stop this urge yeah jeffrey is forced to choose between his own life and janets what are you willing to give up to save somebody or yourself even it's a leska's moral debate too her life or others because she doesn't like killing but she needs to kill the live it's like there's that struggle yeah and that's why she seeks help the comedy in this movie is fantastic and i like how it doesn't really overshadow the rest of the movie what's going on right it's just in pockets police officers that are a little bumbly right and the one guy who's sort of new and he's always jittery and looking around and afraid it's funny to think how far back that bumbling cop cliche goes it's in this movie and it goes pad before this movie too the dynamic between jeffrey and janet his secretary phoning him with a crank call yeah prank calling him in the 30s yeah and you know just giving him the fucking gears and so he gives her shit he's like don't call back and then they get a real phone call from somebody from the from the hospital literally wanting to call him over for help he's like i thought i told you and he's all giving the guy shit and then he gets back at her by getting the operator to call her a house every 30 minutes yeah to keep her away stuff like that it's fucking hilarious the comedy in this movie is actually surpasses i think the horror in it it's almost more of a comedy than a horror in some ways yeah and the comedy goes throughout the whole movie like that whole routine with the tie like how he can never tie his tie right it's always crooked all the time yeah when he calls the guy from scotland yard really sleeping in bed that whole scene yeah it's like out of a fucking montipython sketch this is like this witty british dialogue back and forth it's hilarious yeah are you gonna have your barley water barley water infect me my gun i'm going to hunt vampires ha ha ha and because it's a universal movie in the 30s the sets in the atmosphere are a given yeah spectacular full of fog these great gothic sets you sink into the couch when you're watching this when you get all you hear that music and you see the fog and the sets you're like you kind of feel at home yeah you do and it kind of actually makes you wish that you could live in this time period maybe not forever but experience it for a bit like to be all highbrow and go to the parties and go get attacked by a vampire a lot of critics happen to touch upon the fact that there's this lesbian sort of angle played up in this movie right and we didn't i didn't really see it like i i can see where they were going with that but in the context of the whole movie i did not really see this lesbian angle played out no there are definitely scenes where i can see where people could get that impression when she gets the the model to take off her clothes and stuff like that it's a little ironic and it's a little sexual and when she goes to bite the secretary janet she goes in it looks like a kiss like that's very sexual and alluring and stuff but it's also just the vampire way of doing things vampires are very sexual and provocative provocative in my opinion it's her prey she bites men in this too but i think it's just that they were choosing to use women push the boundaries a bit to say that dracula's daughter is a lesbian in this i think is far-fetched that's a fucking stretch i think it shows how it manages to put that seed in your mind though right how people are talking about it and it's like well brilliant filmmaking yeah it is and it really if anything it kind of maybe implies that she is not a lesbian but she's maybe just open to whatever she's more bisexual or whatever maybe at the most maybe at the most but the fact that at the end she lures jeffrey to transylvania to capture him and to turn him into a vampire to be her eternal partner well that tells me she's not necessarily a lesbian because she wants an eternal male partner i think they were just doing some provocative filmmaking at the time you know like the let's push the boundaries a bit we're pushing the boundaries as far as social issues go in this movie as far as women and men and women's rights and stuff like that so let's let's do it you know on screen as much as we could and i think that's what those scenes are really doing it's great that we can have this conversation about this movie all these years later and debate that i think that's super cool that a movie that's this old we can talk about these kind of themes and that they're even touching on them is pretty cool yeah there's i love how there's all that kind of innuendo stuff put into this movie and yeah you're still debating it and it's like i think it's a brilliant i think this is a brilliant movie a really cool sequel because it took everything and flipped it on its ass right yeah which is what you kind of want from a sequel i wish more sequels would learn from what this movie did and not just repeat what came before yeah exactly no cookie cutter shit right do your own thing so that's it so if you want a very smart very provocative very thought inducing movie then check out 1936's dracula's daughter uh you'll definitely have a debate of some kind going on right and watch it with somebody so you can talk about what this movie is trying to get across yeah because maybe you'll have a different opinion than us right yeah perfectly fine and for sure you'll have a laugh because the movie is legitimately funny yeah if anyone is one of those people that says i won't watch a movie because it's old and black and white well then you can fuck up and until next time keep drinking