DRACULA PRISONER OF FRANKENSTEIN/THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN

DRACULA PRISONER OF FRANKENSTEIN (a.k.a. DRACULA CONTRA FRANKENSTEIN; THE SCREAMING DEAD; DRACULA VS FRANKENSTEIN) begins with a woman preparing herself for bed, only to be startled by a sudden storm that brings Dracula (Howard Vernon, VIRGIN AMONG THE LIVING DEAD; FACELESS etc) to her window. Lightening flashes and the Count enters the woman's room, attacking her.

Later, Dracula appears at the window of a female patient at Dr Seward's (Alberto Dalbes, HUNCHBACK OF THE MORGUE) clinic. But Seward hears the woman's screams and rushes to her aide.

Later, when the first victim is found dead and inspected by the doctor, it becomes apparent that Dracula has been up to his old tricks again. Cue a hasty trip up to the Count's castle on the hill, where the doc finds Dracula sleeping in his coffin - and promptly drives a stake into his heart. Dracula morphs into a bat as he dies.

Before long, however, Seward's nemesis Dr Frankenstein (Dennis Price, THEATRE OF BLOOD; TOWER OF EVIL) has moved into the old castle and discovers the dead bat. Having successfully restored life to his own monster, he orders his creation to bring a woman to his laboratory so he can drain her of blood and revive Dracula in doing so.

With Dracula now at his command, Frankenstein dreams of ultimate power over mankind. His first task for Dracula is to have him go to Seward's clinic and turn the doctor's sexy inmate into a vampire ...

Awful. DRACULA PRISONER OF FRANKENSTEIN is slow, ugly, dark, badly framed, and poorly acted. It boasts virtually no production values whatsoever, and suffers from hardly any dialogue - which, added to the confusing editing, makes it difficult to know what the Hell's going on for half of the time. Or is it just that I didn't care?

The scene where Frankenstein first revives the Count is, admittedly, very funny. Not that it's meant to be. But the music is so melodramatic and overblown, it had me giggling. Price sweats throughout, looking nauseous for the most part. Vernon is his usual terrible self, while Franco's use of the zoom lens is in overdrive. It's a terrible film, not even fun enough to fall into the "so bad it's good" category.

THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (a.k.a. THE EROTIC RITES OF FRANKENSTEIN; THE EROTIC ADVENTURES OF FRANKENSTEIN; LA MALDICION DE FRANKENSTEIN) is better.

Opening with Frankenstein (Price again) in his laboratory conducting experiments on his silver-skinned creature to see if he can speak, it's immediately apparent that this is a bigger budgeted, better-shot and better-lit movie. There's less zooming going on too!

Frankenstein's monster does indeed achieve speech ("My head hurts", he wails after the scientist pumps electric vaults into it), but celebrations are cut short when the beautiful Melisa (Anne Libert, VIRGIN AMONG THE LIVING DEAD) breaks into the laboratory with her henchman and takes a chunk out of Frankenstein's neck. They steal the monster and race it back to a beachside chateau owned by the sinister Cagliostro (Vernon). Cagliostro, a would-be scientist in his own right, is delighted to have the creature in his possession. We learn from Melisa that he intends to use the monster to bring virgins to his castle so he can have his way with them ... then use their bodies to experiment upon.

But it's around this time that Frankenstein is being cared for on his death bed by his old rival Dr Seward (Dalbes again). Before popping his clogs, Frankenstein shares the fact that he has created human life - and begs Seward to retrieve the monster.

When Frankenstein's daughter Vera (Beatriz Savon, FRANKENSTEIN'S BLOODY TERROR) turns up to her father's funeral, Seward is intrigued by her presence. But rather than make his acquaintance she has other things on her mind - like stealing Daddy's corpse later that night and taking him back to the laboratory to resurrect him. This she does, and she too is implored by Frankenstein to save the monster.

But Cagliostro has other plans - such as creating a female monster of his own, and impregnating an enigmatic young gypsy called Esmeralda (Lina Romay, LINDA; FEMALE VAMPIRE) ...

Franco frames a lot of scenes quite well in this picture, and seems much happier working with treats such as eye-catching scenery and coloured lighting. Vernon seems a lot more comfortable in his role in this film than in DRACULA too. All of which adds up to a much more enjoyable, professional-looking film. It helps that there's more dialogue in-between the dreamlike meandering too. At times it even manages something approaching, dare I say it, atmosphere.

DRACULA is presented in anamorphic 1.85:1 (the opening titles are in 2.35:1). The picture is quite soft and there's some grain to be found, along with ghosting. The film's mostly shot in the dark, so it doesn't bode well that Tartan's transfer handles blacks badly. It's a very washed out, faded affair at times.

FRANKENSTEIN fares better, with a solid, reasonably sharp and grain-free anamorphic 2.35:1 transfer.

Both films have Spanish mono audio, which is fine in both cases. Removable subtitles are available on both discs, in English and English Hard of Hearing. Both discs boast very nice animated menus and each film can be accessed via 16 chapters.

Extras on both discs are a selection of ropey-looking deleted/alternative/extended scenes. For DRACULA this amounts to 10 minutes' worth, including two alternate titles sequences.

FRANKENSTEIN has a more impressive 21 minutes' worth of footage - included alternative footage from the "unclothed" version of the film - which, screen notes tell us, was actually a shorter film than the "clothed" version contained on the disc, as it did not contain the sub-plot with Romay's character.

A true mixed bag here from Tartan - both in terms of the films themselves (though I agree they fit well together as a double pack), and the quality of transfers on offer.

Review by Stu Willis