Son Of Dracula (1943)

Nearly fifty years after first seeing Son of Dracula, curiosity and fading memories finally dictated that it was time for a revisit. Time had blurred most details, though there remained a hazy recollection of a sinister gentleman named Alucard arriving at a sprawling Southern plantation and promptly spreading malevolent influence wherever he went.

Watching the film again after all these decades proved an interesting experience — though perhaps not entirely the one hoped for.

The plantation owner conveniently expires shortly after Alucard’s arrival, while one of his two daughters already appears strangely entranced by the mysterious foreign visitor whom nobody seems to know anything about. Katherine, newly inheriting the estate, abruptly abandons her previous sweetheart in favour of the darkly seductive stranger, who promises her eternal happiness — an offer she appears unable to resist.

Shortly before his arrival, Katherine encounters the local bat-obsessed witch woman Madame Zimba, who rants ominously inside her voodoo shack about terrible evil descending upon the area. Zimba warns Katherine repeatedly of impending doom, though the smitten heiress pays little attention and barely reacts when the old woman collapses in hysterics and dies mid-prophecy.

Alucard himself soon appears and wastes no time pursuing Katherine. Before long, the pair are married, much to the outrage of Katherine’s rejected fiancé, whose suspicions regarding the mysterious stranger rapidly intensify.

In a fit of rage, he attempts to shoot Alucard dead — only for the bullets to pass harmlessly through the vampire and instead strike Katherine, who collapses lifelessly onto the floor.

Naturally, she returns a few days later as the smugly content Mrs. Alucard.

Meanwhile, suspicion continues mounting, and frantic long-distance phone calls to Hungary eventually reveal that Alucard may indeed be connected to something deeply sinister. A Hungarian expert named Lazlo promises to investigate further and soon travels to America carrying dreadful warnings about the evil now taking root on the plantation.

Meanwhile, Katherine and her undead husband increasingly isolate themselves from friends and relatives, insisting they must not be disturbed because they are engaged in “scientific research” that can only apparently be conducted during the dead of night.

Alucard himself frequently waxes lyrical about the stale, exhausted people of his old homeland compared with the vibrant new blood awaiting him in America. Clearly, he sees the New World as fertile ground for expansion and conquest, encouraged enthusiastically by Katherine herself.

There are one or two modest twists along the way as the mystery unfolds toward its conclusion, though unfortunately the film never quite develops the sinister atmosphere one hopes for from a Dracula picture.

Lon Chaney Jr., while perfectly competent, simply lacks the aristocratic menace and hypnotic evil traditionally associated with Dracula. His Alucard feels oddly flat and one-dimensional throughout, never quite radiating the dread or dark charisma required to elevate the character.

The remainder of the cast perform adequately enough, though intriguingly the film’s most memorable presence comes from Evelyn Ankers’s brief encounter with the wonderfully eccentric Madame Zimba, who injects far more personality into her few scenes than most of the main cast manage throughout the entire film.

There are occasional flashes of atmosphere — particularly the striking image of Alucard’s coffin rising slowly from the swamp waters — but precious little else that genuinely unsettles or quickens the pulse.

For a horror film, Son of Dracula feels remarkably tame.

There is very little genuine suspense, almost no sense of mounting dread, and the film never builds toward the sort of terrifying climax necessary to leave a lasting impression. Even the supposedly macabre material unfolds in an oddly restrained and emotionally distant fashion.

And that is perhaps the film’s greatest weakness overall:

it lacks menace.

One keeps waiting for the story to become truly sinister, eerie, or oppressive, yet it never quite happens.

Despite these shortcomings, the film does at least remain watchable throughout, which is certainly a credit to director Robert Siodmak. He keeps proceedings moving steadily enough even if he never fully manages to inject the material with the atmosphere or terror required to transform it into something genuinely memorable.

In the end, Son of Dracula emerges as a competent but distinctly underwhelming entry in the classic Universal horror cycle — neither terrible nor especially effective.

Those hoping for the chills, dread, and gothic power associated with the earlier Dracula films may well come away disappointed.

Instead, this particular Son of Dracula feels rather pedestrian, strangely muted, and ultimately far too tame to do proper justice to the legendary horror lineage from which it sprang.