The upcoming horror movie is a loose remaining of this 1936 sequel.
The Big Picture
- Creating children of classic monsters is a popular concept for a younger audience, but it is now being explored in horror for adults.
- The upcoming film
Abigail
is a soft reboot of the Universal Monsters franchise and is another film that dives into the idea of Dracula having children. -
Dracula’s Daughter
, a 1936 film and loose retelling of
Carmilla
, explores themes of psychology and addiction in a story about vampires, but falls victim to the constraints of the Hays Code.
Creating children of classic monsters has been a tried and tested concept for a while now, mostly for a very young audience, with a more recent example being Monster High. It’s a solid first introduction to horror and supernatural themes, but that doesn’t mean it’s not used in horror for big kids as well. Spawns of the Devil have been popular since the 1970s, with the classic The Omen also receiving a reboot in The First Omen. Children of Dracula have also appeared multiple times. There is Alucard of Castlevania, Hotel Transylvania‘s Mavis, Young Dracula‘s Vladimir, and Draculaura of the previously mentioned Monster High. They’re usually targeted at a wider audience, with the content still being appropriately spooky, but not straight-up horror.
This is set to change with Abigail, which hits theaters this weekend. A group of criminals kidnaps a young girl only to discover that she’s not trapped with them, they’re trapped with her: a bloodthirsty vampire who hunts them like an apex predator. The film stars Alisha Weir as the titular vampire, alongside Melissa Barerra, Dan Stevens, Kathryn Newton, Giancarlo Esposito, Kevin Durand, Will Catlett, and the late Angus Cloud. The reimagining is being brought to the screen by the directing duo, Tyler Gillett and Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, known as Radio Silence. The directing duo said that Abigail is “a bit of a fuck you to the lore.” So, we really shouldn’t be expecting this to be a faithful adaptation of the Dracula mythology. What we can expect, though, is blood — lots of blood.
While Abigail is its own beast, it is a reimagining of a 1936 film, a direct sequel to the Bela Lugosi classic, and the first to dive into the idea of Dracula having children: Dracula’s Daughter.
Dracula’s Daughter (1936)
When Countess Marya Zaleska appears in London, mysterious events occur that lead Dr. Von Helsing to believe that the Countess must be a vampire.
- Release Date
- May 11, 1936
- Director
- Lambert Hillyer
- Cast
- Otto Kruger , Gloria Holden , Marguerite Churchill , Edward Van Sloan , Gilbert Emery , Irving Pichel , Halliwell Hobbes , Billy Bevan
- Main Genre
- Horror
- Writers
- Garrett Fort , John L. Balderston , Bram Stoker
- Runtime
- 71 Minutes
‘Dracula’s Daughter’ Is a Film With a Lot of Firsts
Dracula’s Daughter is set immediately after 1931’s Dracula. Dracula and Renfield have just been killed, and Professor Von Helsing (Edward Van Sloan, the only returning cast member) is left to pick up the pieces. This is mostly — and hilariously — because the police believe he has just murdered a man with a wooden stake. Meanwhile, the audience meets Countess Marya Zalenska (Gloria Holden), a mysterious vampiric woman who seeks to be free of her father, Dracula’s dark influence. If you’re looking for something on that same Gothic scale as Tod Browning‘s 1931 classic, then you may be disappointed by Dracula’s Daughter, with the fangs being severely filed down five years and several censorship laws later. In many respects, it feels like a downgrade, but it does do some interesting things in the story.
Many of these things have to do with the highlight of the film, Dracula’s daughter herself. Much of this stems from the film being a very, very loose retelling of Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu, the first attempt by Hollywood to adapt the classic sapphic vampire story. This goes about as well as one can expect in Golden Age Hollywood, with whatever lesbian undertones Marya is given having a predatory nature to it, making it a bit of an uncomfortable watch now.
‘Abigail’: Release Date, Cast, Trailer, and Everything We Know About Melissa Barrera’s Next Horror Movie
Don’t call it a comeback, because the Universal Monsters never left.
On the flip side, Marya is also a very early example of the reluctant vampire trope, one who seeks a cure for her vampirism; first through destroying her father’s body, then through another interesting plot development. Dracula’s Daughter is also one of the first films to involve themes of psychology and addiction in a story about vampires. This is done through the film’s new hero, psychiatrist Jeffrey Garth (Otto Kruger), and his assistant Janet Blake (Marguerite Churchill), with whom he has a cute little back-and-forth. This is where we witness ideas of hypnotism and exposure therapy, both unsuccessful and wildly out of date by today’s standards, but still a rather interesting direction in blending supernatural fantasy with scientific fact.
‘Dracula’s Daughter’ Villifies Its Titular, Queer-Coded Female Character
Holden’s performance is the best part of the film by a long shot. It helps that she has a reputation for playing cold, mysterious society women. What also helped is that she reportedly hated this role, fearing the same typecasting her predecessor, Bela Lugosi, was forced into, which is a valid fear to have, according to Mark Clark’s Smirk, Sneer and Scream: Great Acting in Horror Cinema. However, this enhanced the performance and gave it extra layers of self-loathing and disgust. These are the core emotions of Marya Zalenska, and her character is so deeply tragic for that reason. She doesn’t want to accept her true nature and tries to fight it; but in the end, the story makes her submit to the darkness she tries to stave away and punishes her for it.
The back half of this film drips with Hays Code conservatism; the coded lesbian ravenously targets young, innocent ladies who need to be saved by men. No matter how sympathetic, or even relatable Marya is, no matter how close she gets to changing her ways, it doesn’t matter. It would be one thing for her to accept what she is, it’s another entirely to be unceremoniously killed off by her spurned assistant (Irving Pichel) for not making him immortal.
The Hays Code Ruined Complex Storytelling in Horror Movies
The very first rule of the Hays code is this: “No picture shall be produced that will lower the moral standards of those who see it. Hence, the sympathy of the audience should never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil, or sin.” Ergo, good guys always win, bad guys always lose, and lose badly. The monster is chased away with pitchforks and torches, or killed in cold blood by the hero, and the audience is meant to walk away happy and satisfied that justice was done and all was right with the world. They don’t get their day in court, they don’t get to say their piece, they’re just punished as if struck down by the Almighty, and the protagonist shrugs and says “Well, that’s the end of that.”
This is not only bad storytelling today, for every character, even the morally objectionable ones, should be allowed some depth and motive for why they are how they are. If a villain is set to be defeated, they should still be understood, if not by the hero, then by the audience — even if that understanding doesn’t justify their actions. But it’s more insidious in a film like Dracula’s Daughter, where our “villain” is a stock stereotype for a marginalized community. The predatory bisexual, the self-loathing queer person who can’t fight against their dark urges, and is viciously reprimanded for them. This puritanical morality tainted cinema for 30 years, but most remarkably, the horror genre, where the complex line between monster and hero was forced to be a clear and large one, taking away all the storytelling layering that the genre is so loved for.
Dracula’s Daughter is still worth watching for Holden’s performance, and even the playfully antagonistic relationship between Jeffrey and Janet, but this writer is almost certain that we’ll see a better use of the story in Abigail.
Dracula’s Daughter is available to rent on Amazon.
Rent on Amazon
This article was originally published on collider.com