SincereFinest disgusting, overrated, pointless

Holstra Boring, long, and too preachy.

Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Staci Frederick Blistering performances.

MitchellCombden Dracula's daughter (1936) is directed by Lambert Hillyer. this is the official sequel to Tod Browning's memorable and atmospheric universal horror classic an follows the daughter of Dracula, Hungarian countess Marya Zaleska. she seeks release from the evil influence of the evil known as Dracula.what the film does right is it hits all the right notes in the atmosphere department while also staying true to it's characters motivations. countess Zaleska played wonderfully by Gloria Holden is a tortured and sympathetic character that is seeking release from the evil influence of Dracula and can not seem to shake her evil urges and impulses. her assistant Sandor played by Irving Pichel acts as a contrast to the character Jeffrey Garth played by Otto Kruger (Kruger does a great job here as well). Garth informs her there is a way to release herself from the curse while Sandor tells her there is no escape and that evil will always prevail. but Sandor isn't simply there saying these things for the sake of being there and saying them to provide contrast. he is saying these things because his character plays a much deeper role in the context of the plot. he seeks immortality and if he is to achieve his goal he mustn't let Zaleska achieve hers. but back to Gloria Holden's performance. her screen presence is what makes the film work so well. charming, sensual, hypnotizing and desperate she chews the scenery in nearly every scene she's in. in the original Dracula Lugosi portrayed Dracula as a more sinister and evil character. but because of his Charisma and style we also rooted for him because we couldn't help but to want to see more of him. in this film however we do feel genuine sympathy for our female Dracula, this is something that was not present in the previous film and this makes this sequel very unique and ground breaking. Edward Van Sloan returns as Professor Von Helsing and does an excellent job as well.I should also mention that the score is utterly haunting and wonderful in this film. one of the best of the universal era horror scores. now, some people speak of a lesbian undertone or sub text in the film that I was not fully aware of. while I do believe it is possible for it to be an underlying thing here I do not think it was intentional.so in short, the performances are all great, the character are all written well and the atmosphere and story are on point.one thing that is a massive negative here though is the comedy that is shoe horned in. it feels terribly out of place and has not aged well at all. the ending also felt a tad bit rushed. while it was good and I'm aware that the intent was to create a suspenseful and climactic ending I think it could have been a tad bit better.overall Dracula's Daughter is a classic and the second best in the universal Dracula legacy.the verdict: 8.5/10

skybrick736 Give props to Lambert Hillyer and Garrett Fort for following up from the first Dracula with a well-planned sequel that takes place pretty much directly after the original. They pulled it off too only bringing back one central actor, Edward Von Sloan, who didn't exactly have the biggest role. The new stars include Otto Kruger, who was a strong lead and also Gloria Holden are new villain. The writing for Holden's character, Countess Zeleska aka Dracula's Daughter, was more sympathetic than ominous, which in my mind wasn't really the right portrayal to make. A darker female vixen would have been an extremely effective move and added a bit of an excitement factor that the film was missing.Another aspect of the film which I thought might have been played out a bit more was a backstory about the daughter and Dracula's relationship. Not having that connection is kind of a missing element of the story-line but not having one at all is probably better than if it was overdone. Dr. Garth himself was a well-developed witty character and interesting protagonist, the type we rarely see, which has doubts about the adversary. Dracula's Daughter has its pros and cons just like any other film but from as a classical horror film perspective it's still a viable watch.

Leofwine_draca A worthy sequel to the original classic, this film is actually better than it's predecessor in some ways. The addition of music -something sadly lacking in Dracula - helps to enliven things quite a bit, meaning that the film is not quite as dated as the original was. The opening scenes are excellent. I love it when films directly continue on from the previous instalment (the Hammer Dracula series did this). Film highlights include the moment where Bela Lugosi's rubber corpse is burnt on a huge fire in a graveyard! Just the kind of classic image we've come to expect from these Universal horror flicks.After this excellent opening the film changes track and becomes the usual drawing-room horror that we're used to seeing in the 1930s. People talk, argue, and shout, and intrigue is everywhere. I found the love sub-plot between the Countess and the Doctor to be a little dull and I could have done without it. However to spice up the action there are a number of vampire attacks and the film's most memorable image, where a young girl strips for the Countess before being bitten. This sequence was pretty raunchy for its day and even lesbianism is implied, which we are more used to seeing in Hammer's Carmilla trilogy.The actors range from being quite wooden (Otto Kruger) to rather good (Gloria Holden). However on hand are two regular horror actors who definitely add the element of fun to the film. Firstly there's Irving Pichel, playing an evil assistant (he looks devilish here) and then we have Edward Van Sloan (FRANKENSTEIN) as Van Helsing. Sloan is excellent when he's going on about vampires and the like and it's a pleasure to see him again. All in all it's a pretty good film but it sorely lacks the presence of a leading horror star (such as Lugosi). Apart from that it's atmospheric and has some great scenes to look out for. An above average sequel to a classic film.

Bonehead-XL "Dracula's Daughter" is an endlessly intriguing film. It is, in many ways, very ahead of its time. The film gets a lot of notice for being the very first lesbian vampire on-screen. It also has got to be one of the earliest sympathetic vampires. Countess Zaleska is the main character of the film. She wants nothing to do with her father's legacy and instead longs to live a normal life. However, she is uncontrollably driven by her nature to feed on the blood of the living. The entire movie is driven by her struggling with two conflicting desires. The fate of the film lies on whether she chooses to be good or evil. This is thoroughly modern stuff, the kind of thing modern horror novels are built on.The extremely good cast helps. Gloria Holden has a captivating face, with wide expressive eyes. Her broad voice conveys the proper amount of aristocratic lineage. Her performance is surprisingly subtle. I suspect with an actress of her type, it would have been very easy to go over-the-top so she wisely plays it in the opposite direction. Her performance informs that entire film, which is generally a low-key, character-oriented affair.If Countess Zaleska is struggling with her nature, Irving Pichel's Sandor is strictly Mephistophelian figure. Perhaps conceived as a Renfield-like figure, Sandor instead constantly beckons Zaleska to the dark side. In the last reel, we discover this is strictly because he was promise the gift of eternal life in return for being the vampire's helper. When she goes back on the deal, he doesn't take it well.The movie is primarily a character study but, good as the film is, it still has to find time for the genre conventions of the era. Otto Kruger plays the movie's leading man, Jeffrey Garth, a psychologist who is positioned at the center of the Countess' moral battle. It's not a bad performance, Garth is actually fairly charming, but the love and obsession the vampire develops with him never really carries. The slap-slap-kiss-kiss back-and-forth Garth has with his secretary, played by Marguerite Churchill, occupies way too much of the film's time. The two sell the slap-slap part but not so much the kiss part. The two people seem to genuinely hate each other.The movie functions as a horror film too. The early scene of Holden cremating her father's corpse and exorcising the demons inside continues the first film's tradition of English fog and black-and-white atmosphere. The most famous moment in the movie, where a young woman is brought off of the streets to model for the bisexual vampire, slowly becoming aware of the danger she is in, draws tension out exceedingly well. When the vampire finally strikes, the camera cuts from a woman's screaming face to an African tribal mask hanging on the wall."Dracula's Daughter" would actually be a good candidate for a remake. A new version of the film could focus squarely on the Countess' struggle with her own nature, excising all the unnecessary comic relief and romantic subplots. The original is a surprisingly deep, underrated part of the Universal Monsters canon.