by Barry Meyer
Yesterday, they were cold & dead - today, they're hot & bothered! From Midnight Video.
If you're a horror freak who's been dying to see the three main staples of any good horror diet - Dracula, Frankenstein and the Wolfman - together on the same screen, well your prayers have been answered. In Dracula Prisoner of Frankenstein (aka Dracula Contra Frankenstein and The Screaming Dead) the horror worlds collide when the evil Dr. Frankenstein, along with his mute servant Morpho, come to the rescue of Count Dracula. It seems that the Count got a well-done stake right through the ticker, so the Baron reanimates the vampire with a bit of blood from a virginal young female. Together the two creeps become masters of a man-made monster and a harem full of gorgeous vamp's who they use in their attempts to take over the world. When their monstrous egos clash, though, the Baron turns on his blood-sucking partner, and a gruesome battle royale finale between Count Dracula, Frankenstein's monster, and the werewolf ensues.
Though this flick seems to be a horror nerd's wet dream, it may be a disappointment to the real die-hard Jess Franco fans. There are a bloody lot of scantily-clad chesty women getting their necks bitten, and a fair dose of back crunching killings, but the real victim in this flick is the messed up English translation. European horror movies generally rely on the visuals to tell the story, avoiding the cumbersome subtitles or ill-timed dubbed-over voices, but somehow the English version of DPF (there is even an "English version director" credited in the open!) gets bogged down with badly cut-up action, and some overly explicit voice-over dialogue, used only to explain the story rather than tell a story.
Nonetheless, this flick is worth a Saturday late night double feature, 'cuz you just can't go wrong when the Count, Frankenstein and the Wolfman come out to party.
Barry Meyer is a writer living out Jersey way.
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