THE BRIDES OF DRACULA (1960)
COLLECTOR’S EDITION
Label: Scream Factory
Region Code: A
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 86 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Mono with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.66:1) & 1080p HD Widescreen (1.85:1)
Director: Terrence Fisher
Cast: Peter Cushing, Freda Jackson, Martita Hunt, Yvonne Monlaur
Hammer horror The Brides of Dracula (1960) features the lovely Yvonne Monlaur (Circus of Horrors) French woman named Marianne travelling by carriage through Eastern Europe to her new assignment as a teacher at Transylvania academy for young women. Along the way she finds herself abandoned by her driver at a village inn, where she is invited by the aging Baroness Meinster (Matita Hunt, Great Expectations) to stay the night at her castle. While exploring the castle she encounters the Baroness' 'feeble-minded son' the Baron Meinster (David Peel, The Hands of Orlac) chained-up and kept prisoner in his bedroom. Alarmed by his mistreatment and not fully understanding that he's a bloodsucking fiend she releases him from his shackles, allowing the Baron resume his bloodsucking ways, which he kicks-off with draining his mother of her blood, causing a panicked Marianne to flee the castle.
Later Marianne is discovered by Dr. Van Helsing (Peter Cushing, Corruption) who has been summoned to the village by local priest Father Stepnik, whom has long suspected something evil was afoot at the Castle Meinster. Marianne is strangely fatigued and suffering from a bit of amnesia, unable to recall the events of the past few days, and after recovering she eventually assumes her teaching position at the nearby academy.
Van Helsing meanwhile remains in the village and begins to make his inquiries about the castle happenings, hearing stories of how young women from the village keep turning-up dead with bite marks on their necks, it seems the Baron has been very busy since being unleashed, and eventually Van Helsing eventually faces off against the bloodsucker at windmill. For a Hammer vampire flick not featuring Christopher Lee, or even Count Dracula for that matter, this is top-notch Gothic Hammer horror, David Peel makes for a seductive, bloodshot-eyed, blonde vampire, and Cushing for his part is in fine form as the action-oriented vampire hunter. Cushing is pretty bad-ass in this one, being bitten he wards of becoming a bloodsucker by splashing some holy water and the wound and cauterizing it with a red-hot branding iron!
Matita Hunt is also quite grand in the role of the conflicted Baroness, her and her son have an interesting backstory that alludes to al-manner of taboo, and and the super-sexy Andree Melly (The Horror of It All) is a mesmerizing presence as one of the Baron's vampire brides. She has all the plunging neckline accoutrements of a classic Hammer glamor girl, and I surprised she did not end up in more Hammer flicks after this one. Add to that the Gothic visuals of this entry are quite lush, certainly on par with Hammer's finest horror productions with fantastic period sets and costuming that dazzle the Gothic-loving eye.
Audio/Video: The Brides of Dracula (1960) arrives on Blu-ray from Scream Factory with a new 2K scan of the interpostive, framed in both 1.85:1 and 1.66:1 widescreen. The new scan looks fantastic, the grain more finely resolved and natural looking than the 2016 release from Universal, the film having appeared on the Hammer Horror 8-Film Collection Blu-ray set. The source looks excellent with only a bit of white speckling, the black levels are strong, colors are vibrant and the image offers plenty of fine detail in the close-ups of facials features and clothing textures. The previous Universal release was also incorrectly framed in 2.0:1 so kudos to Scream Factory for offering both the 1.85:1 U.S. framing and the original 1.66:1 UK framing, with my preference leaning towards the original UK framing of 1.66:1 which offers more image on all four sides. Audio on the disc comes by way of English DTS-HD MA 2.0 mono with optional English subtitles. The presentation is clean and well-balanced, the score from Malcolm Williamson (Nothing But The Night) is effective and sounds terrific. Be sure to check out the thirty screenshot comparisons at the bottom of the review, comparing the 2013 Universal release against the Scream Factory release in both 1.85:1 and 1.66:1.
Onto the extras we get a new audio commentary with author/film historian Steve Haberman and filmmaker/film historian Constantine Nasr who have don many of these Scream Factory Hammer releases, and they continue doing great work on this one. We also get the 58-minute 'The Men Who Made Hammer: Terence Fisher' and the 16-minute 'The Men Who Made Hammer: Jack Asher' with author Richard Klemensen offering an appreciation of both of these influential men.
Author David Huckvale gives a 15-minute appreciation of the score composer with 'The Eternal and the Damned – Malcolm Williamson and The Brides of Dracula', and we get an archival making of featurette, the 31-minute 'The Making of Brides of Dracula' which is narrated by Edward De Souza with interviews with Actress Yvonne Monlaur, Writer Jimmy Sangster, Hammer Historian Richard Golen, Script Supervisor Pauline Harlow, Assistant Director Hugh Harlow and more.
Additionally we get the 15-minute 'Haunting of Oakley Court', which was licensed from Severin Films, it having previously appeared on their release of And Now The Screaming Starts (1973). The featurette offers a look at the iconic filming location known as Oakley Court, a Victorian mansion seen in hundreds of films ranging from The Brides of Dracula, to Girly and the cult-classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show. One look at it and you will recognize it from multiple movies and television appearances, even if you cannot place the film you will know the unmistakable façade. The tour is a walk about the grounds with authors Allan Bryce and David Flint who walk and talk as clips from various movies made on the premises play out. Along the way they offer the rich history of the location, which was favorited by both Amicus and Hammer through the years.
The disc is buttoned-up with a 4-minute trailer for the film, 1-minute of vintage radio sports, and a seven-minute gallery of promotional images and movie posters for the film.
The single-disc release comes housed in a standard Blu-ray keepcase with a reversible sleeve of artwork featuring a new illustration from artist Mark Maddox and the reverse side featuring a fantastic original movie poster option. Personally i think Scream Factory could have saved a few bucks and just gone with original movie poster designs instead of the new illustration, no offense to Maddox, but this flick had some awesome movie posters, check out the gallery to see some of them. The accompanying limited edition to the first run printing slipcover features the new illustration as well.
Special Features:
- NEW 2K Scan from the Interpositive – in both 1.85:1 and 1.66:1 widescreen.
- NEW Audio Commentary with author/film historian Steve Haberman and filmmaker/film historian Constantine Nasr
- NEW The Men Who Made Hammer: Terence Fisher (58 min)
- NEW The Men Who Made Hammer: Jack Asher (16 min)
- NEW The Eternal and the Damned – Malcolm Williamson and The Brides of Dracula (15 min)
- The Making of Brides of Dracula– narrated by Edward De Souza plus interviews with Yvonne Monlaur, Jimmy Sangster, Hugh Harlow and more… (31 min)
- The Haunted History of Oakley Court (15 min)
- Theatrical Trailer (4 min)
- Radio Spot (1 min)
- Still Gallery (7 min)
Scream factory offer up another Hammer classic with a superior A/V presentation, giving us both the UK and U.S. framing of the film plus both archival and new extras that make this the definitive edition of the film to own here in the U.S..
Top: Universal Pictures (2.0:1) 2013
Middle: Scream Factory (1.85:1) 2020
Bottom: Scream Factory (1.66:1) 2020
