Critic Reviews

It's almost dreamlike in its weird little tone, a Manischewitz hangover of a nightmare that's giddy enough to usher chuckles and is thoroughly unique.

Director Roman Polanski co-stars with and directs wife Sharon Tate in their only collaboration. That's one reason this box office bomb, which came out less than two years before Tate was murdered by Charles Manson's crew, has picked up a following. [08 Oct 2004, p.4E]

Shot in the Italian Alps, the cinematography is striking.

Funny and scary, this is vintage Polanski.

The film amiably runs through all the standbys associated with vampire movies, putting a personal and goofy spin on most of them. Sharon Tate also appears, at her most ravishing.

Ferdy Mayne is the menacing Dracula, and Sharon Tate, lady in question, looks particularly nice in her bath. Alfie Bass, the innkeeper; Iain Quarrier as the count’s effeminate son, who has some fangs all his own; Terry Downes, the toothy hunchback castle handyman (who might be Quasimodo returned), and Jessie Robbins, innkeeper’s spouse, lend proper support.

With all its faults, an engaging oddity.

This beautifully produced, superbly scenic and excitingly photographed spoof of old-fashioned horror movies is as dismal and dead as a blood-drained corpse.

Nobody laughed. One or two people cried, and a lady behind me dropped a bag of M&Ms which rolled under the seats, and a guy on the center aisle sneezed at 43 minutes past the hour. But that was about all the action.