The Dracula Lords
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The Dracula Lords |
| Original title | Dracula père et fils |
| Country of production | France |
| original language | French |
| Publishing year | 1976 |
| length | 94 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Édouard Molinaro |
| script |
Alain Godard Jean-Marie Poiré Édouard Molinaro |
| production | Alain Poiré |
| music | Vladimir Cosma |
| camera | Alain Levent |
| cut |
Monique Isnardon Robert Isnardon |
| occupation | |
| |
The Lords Dracula is a French horror comedy from 1976. The literary model was the book The Vampire of Paris by Claude Klotz , which apart from the motifs has nothing to do with Bram Stoker's Dracula .
action
prehistory
A vampire count fathered a child with the mortal Hermione in the most human way. After the birth of their son, the count bites his playmate and turns her into a vampire as well. But Hermione doesn't want to accept her new fate and eventually falls victim to the sunlight. Ferdinand, their son, likes to play pranks on his family. He uses a trick to send his nanny into the deadly sunlight or bowls with his mother's urn.
father and son
In the course of the next 200 years, much to the chagrin of his father, the offspring turned out to be extremely clumsy, good-natured and out of character vampires. So he carries an old woman's things home instead of biting them. All efforts of the father to turn his son into a righteous vampire fail. Ferdinand still drinks his blood from the baby bottle as an adult.
Times are passing. Now, in the 20th century, things are getting restless at home. The communists have seized power in the country and declare the vampires dispossessed and the old family castle public property.
Moving abroad
The vampires decide to leave the country by sea. To be safe from daylight, the vampires kill two sailors on the ship and then take their places in the coffins. Little did you know that the sailors will be buried at sea at sea . So the coffins are finally thrown overboard and the vampires separated.
The father washes ashore in England and the son in France. With his demeanor and ghostly appearance, the father becomes a horror star and famous as a vampire actor. He bites all the movie stars and then exposes them to the sun so that his true self is preserved. The son, Ferdinand, is less fortunate. He hires out at a slaughterhouse and reluctantly feeds on ox blood. But he is caught and released. Ferdinand breaks into a blood bank to steal blood from there. But again, luck is not on him. He is caught again and a court sentenced him to donate blood. Ferdinand finally works as a night watchman and now feeds on cat blood. He finds his best friend in Khaleb, a Moroccan. He is the only one of his work colleagues to explain his origins to him.
Family reunions and divisions
In the course of a film showing, the father and his film team go to France, where Ferdinand sees him on television. So Ferdinand visits him and meets the young Nicole there. She is a reporter and has a relationship with the advertising man Jean. Father and son both fall in love with her. Together with her father, Nicole records an advertisement for toothpaste and he explains to his son that he wants to make Nicole one of theirs. Ferdinand turns away from his father disappointed and goes back to his job as a night watchman.
Nicole and Ferdinand
The young Nicole has meanwhile fallen in love with the good-natured Ferdinand. He tells Nicole about his origins, but she doesn't believe him. They both go out a few times and, finally, Ferdinand stays with her after Nicole has separated from Jean. To his horror he notices after waking up that it is broad daylight. Nicole enters the bedroom and opens the curtains. But to Ferdinand's astonishment, the sunlight can no longer harm him. Nicole's love made him mortal again. When he tells this to his father, he doesn't want to hear it and accuses his son of lying.
Enough
Ferdinand breaks up with his father and moves in with Nicole. The father, still obsessed with turning Nicole into a vampire, shows up one evening at the son's apartment. Father and son get into a heated argument that lasts for hours. As a result, Ferdinand's father carelessly misses the sunrise. When Nicole angrily pulls back the curtains, a ray of sun hits the father and it turns to dust. Then Nicole realizes that Ferdinand told her the truth at the time. Years later they are both married and live in Paris. They have two children, a boy and a girl. While the girl is mortal, the son shows signs of the paternal side. He already has vampire teeth and laughs ecstatically when his little sister opens her knee and bleeds.
criticism
"A parody staged with an elegant, light hand that knows how to amusingly satirize the topoi of horror film," writes the lexicon of international film .
background
Christopher Lee , who played the vampire in several great films , had resolved after Dracula Needs Fresh Blood (1973) never to play Dracula again. Since the role in The Lords Dracula was not originally designed as that of Dracula, he played a parody of his former parade role. In fact, the character portrayed by Lee is always referred to in the film as "the Count"; only the film title suggests a connection to Lee's role in the hammer films.
In the UK the film was released under the title Dracula and Son .
Christopher Lee on the film
In a conversation in February 1989, Lee said that despite its misleading title, this film was not intended as a Dracula film and that its role was not intended to be that of Dracula:
“Everything was different: the costume was different, the wig was different, and my role wasn't even called 'Dracula'. The name is never mentioned in the film, my name is simply 'Le Baron'. The people from Gaumond later simply added the Dracula name to better sell the film. "
Individual evidence
- ↑ The Lords Dracula. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
Web links
- Dracula and Son in the Internet Movie Database (English)