Director: Lambert Hillyer
Writers: Garrett Fort
Stars: Otto Kruger, Gloria Holden, Marguerite Churchill
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This takes up right where “Dracula” ended. We start out as two policemen find Renfield’s body at the bottom of a staircase; his neck has been broken. Dr. Van Helsing walks up to the cops and tells them that the murderer’s body is in the next room. It’s Dracula, and he’s dead. They arrest Van Helsing, and he tells the story (a nice recap of the first movie). Van Helsing wants Dr. Garth, a psychiatrist, to defend him in court, as he’s the only one who might understand.
The policemen, at the police station, hear a strange noise in the room where the corpses are stored. When one officer is left alone, a strange woman enters. She uses her ring to hypnotize the policeman. The other cops return to find Dracula’s body missing and the policeman is dead.
Elsewhere, Countess Marya Zaleska burns Dracula’s body in a fire. “Free forever!” She exclaims. She wants to live life as a normal woman. She starts going to all the big London social parties.
She meets Dr. Garth at one of the parties. He thinks a “vampire” is simply a person with a mental condition that can be cured. The countess is very interested, seeing this as a potential cure. Garth notices that her home doesn’t have any mirrors.
She gets Sandor, her servant, to bring in a girl, Lily, to pose for a painting. She tells the girl to take her shirt off, and looks at her hungrily. She uses her ring to hypnotize Lily and bites her (off camera). Garth sees Lily in the hospital the next day, and she has anemia and amnesia. Since Garth has been talking to Van Helsing, Garth notices the bites and start to think it may be a vampire. When Van Helsing reminds Garth about a vampire not having any mirrors, he makes the connection.
She wants Garth to go with her to the continent, but she won’t share her secret with him. Garth figures it all out and calls the police. He confronts the countess, and she admits that she is Dracula’s daughter. Then she leaves town, escaping on a black plane with no lights; Garth follows her, and the police follow him.
We cut to Transylvania, where the villagers are all happy. Dracula’s daughter wakes up from her coffin and turns on the lights. When the peasants see the light in the castle, they believe Dracula has returned and freak out. Meanwhile, the Countess has kidnapped Garth’s assistant, Janet, to lure him there. She wants to turn Garth, but Sandor is getting jealous; she promised to turn him.
Garth agrees to become a vampire. Before she can turn him, Sandor shoots her with an arrow, and then the police arrive and shoot Sandor. Janet wakes up and recovers.
Commentary
The actor who played Van Helsing came back for this sequel, but Bela Lugosi didn’t. Gloria Holden, who played the Countess, is suitably creepy, but not particularly menacing or even interesting.
This someone leaves her status open to interpretation: is she really a vampire, or does she just have a mental illness. We never actually see her bite anyone or do anything explicitly non-human. At one point, the countess even holds a cross in her hand, while Sandor, her human assitant, cringes away from it.
Sandor is another vaguely Asian character played by a white man.
Quote: “I never drink…wine“
Questions that are left unanswered:
Is she actually Dracula’s genetic daughter, or just a bloodsucker made by him?
Is she actually even a vampire?
What was the “rat” that tunneled into the room where Dracula’s body was stored?