The Brides of Dracula. 1960.
A young woman on her way to a school to teach, takes up residency at the Chateau Meinster, when she sees a young man on the balcony below her window, she goes to help him and is told he is mad and has to be locked up and shackled. When she sets him free unaware she has released evil in to the village.
Dracula is dead, but his disciples life on in the form of the Baron Meinster played by David Peel. His performance did start off decently as he is introduced but as the film went on it became more wooden and boring to the point of thinking "just shut the hell up".
Yvonne Monlaur plays the young french teacher Marinne Danielle who succumbs to the seduction of the Baron, who seems to spend most of her time stupidly wandering into dangerous situations, acceptable in some cases, but in this film it just makes you question what level of intelligence they were trying to impart to her character.
Peter Cushing reprises his role as Doctor Van Helsing who battled Dracula in the previous film now to take on a younger Vampire, Peter Cushing seems more energetic in this film and manages to make a cross appear in the form of a windmill, a man that thinks on his feet. Michael Ripper and Miles Malleson make a small appearance. This is still worthy of the hammer horror right from the opening credits and score which makes it more haunting and the Gothic castle, thankfully Christopher Lee returned to the role of Dracula.
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