Spoilers Warning Elaborated: This review contains spoilers for "Nachts, wenn Dracula erwacht" (1970), as well as for this film, "Cuadecuc vampir."
A documentary following the filming of Franco's cheap international "Dracula" adaptation "Nachts, wenn Dracula erwacht" (1970), "Cuadecuc vampir" one-ups its subject in both style and content selection. (And the documentarians, apparently, didn't even have enough respect for the other production to realize it wasn't a Hammer film, as the documentary's credits erroneously claim.) A silent film with a musical score until the end scene, "Cuadecuc vampir" reminds me of the simultaneous silent productions of early talking pictures made in the late 1920s and early 1930s, when some movie theatres had yet to transition to the equipment required to screen talkies. Similarly, other films were made into separate foreign-language versions with a different cast and crew. The 1931 "Dracula," for instance, was made into two different films, one in English and another in Spanish, and may've also been edited into a silent release. Sometimes, these secondary productions upstaged the primary film. That's kind of what happened here.
Rather than simply being behind-the-scenes footage or a making-of documentary, "Cuadecuc vampir" is a simultaneous filming of the same production as Franco's film. It replaces the latter's absurd abundance of zoom-ins with some superior framing of images behind foreground objects, in addition to the focus on light with the low- quality black-and-white photography. "Cuadecuc," of the title, translates as "cuvette," which is a tube used to hold samples for experiments. It's an apt analogy for this experimental film.
It also cuts out some of the worst parts of Franco's film and includes some interesting and humorous behind-the-scenes footage of the other crew filming the same scenes or the actors in between takes. Christopher Lee lurching at the camera before getting into his casket as Dracula, or Maria Rohm, the film's Mina, winking at the camera during a scene are some of the more enjoyable and playful moments. The silence removes the often-tired dialogue. There are no taxidermic animals attacking, as Franco ridiculously had in one scene. Klaus Kinski's Renfield is eliminated, and as it frequently turns out in movie adaptations of Bram Stoker's novel, the film's no worse without the character. We don't see the other film's weird Van Helsing stroke, either, nor its death-by-fire ending. Consequently, the pacing is better and is even quite rhythmic, as opposed to the slow, dull pacing in the Franco version.
The five minutes near the end where the musical score is stuck on one repeating note is an annoying exception to this film being an improvement. It sounds like a broken record or piece of malfunctioning equipment. The scene after this, however, is the best part and its only talking sequence. Rather than reshoot the ending of Franco's version, which is a bad alteration to Stoker's original take, this film shows Christopher Lee describing and reading Dracula's death scene from Stoker's novel. This scene also has the best mirror shots I've seen in any Dracula movie, as the camera whirls around Lee's reflection in two dressing-room mirrors and finally upon his image outside them. It's the documentary coming out of the mirror of the production of the fictional film, to the reality of Lee, out of makeup, reading the fiction's source. It's certainly better than the camera tricks to not show Lee's Dracula's reflection in the castle mirror shot in the Franco film.
"Cuadecuc vampire" may not be very interesting by itself, but viewing it after the disappointment of the 1970 "Dracula," it somewhat makes having viewed the other film worth it.
A documentary following the filming of Franco's cheap international "Dracula" adaptation "Nachts, wenn Dracula erwacht" (1970), "Cuadecuc vampir" one-ups its subject in both style and content selection. (And the documentarians, apparently, didn't even have enough respect for the other production to realize it wasn't a Hammer film, as the documentary's credits erroneously claim.) A silent film with a musical score until the end scene, "Cuadecuc vampir" reminds me of the simultaneous silent productions of early talking pictures made in the late 1920s and early 1930s, when some movie theatres had yet to transition to the equipment required to screen talkies. Similarly, other films were made into separate foreign-language versions with a different cast and crew. The 1931 "Dracula," for instance, was made into two different films, one in English and another in Spanish, and may've also been edited into a silent release. Sometimes, these secondary productions upstaged the primary film. That's kind of what happened here.
Rather than simply being behind-the-scenes footage or a making-of documentary, "Cuadecuc vampir" is a simultaneous filming of the same production as Franco's film. It replaces the latter's absurd abundance of zoom-ins with some superior framing of images behind foreground objects, in addition to the focus on light with the low- quality black-and-white photography. "Cuadecuc," of the title, translates as "cuvette," which is a tube used to hold samples for experiments. It's an apt analogy for this experimental film.
It also cuts out some of the worst parts of Franco's film and includes some interesting and humorous behind-the-scenes footage of the other crew filming the same scenes or the actors in between takes. Christopher Lee lurching at the camera before getting into his casket as Dracula, or Maria Rohm, the film's Mina, winking at the camera during a scene are some of the more enjoyable and playful moments. The silence removes the often-tired dialogue. There are no taxidermic animals attacking, as Franco ridiculously had in one scene. Klaus Kinski's Renfield is eliminated, and as it frequently turns out in movie adaptations of Bram Stoker's novel, the film's no worse without the character. We don't see the other film's weird Van Helsing stroke, either, nor its death-by-fire ending. Consequently, the pacing is better and is even quite rhythmic, as opposed to the slow, dull pacing in the Franco version.
The five minutes near the end where the musical score is stuck on one repeating note is an annoying exception to this film being an improvement. It sounds like a broken record or piece of malfunctioning equipment. The scene after this, however, is the best part and its only talking sequence. Rather than reshoot the ending of Franco's version, which is a bad alteration to Stoker's original take, this film shows Christopher Lee describing and reading Dracula's death scene from Stoker's novel. This scene also has the best mirror shots I've seen in any Dracula movie, as the camera whirls around Lee's reflection in two dressing-room mirrors and finally upon his image outside them. It's the documentary coming out of the mirror of the production of the fictional film, to the reality of Lee, out of makeup, reading the fiction's source. It's certainly better than the camera tricks to not show Lee's Dracula's reflection in the castle mirror shot in the Franco film.
"Cuadecuc vampire" may not be very interesting by itself, but viewing it after the disappointment of the 1970 "Dracula," it somewhat makes having viewed the other film worth it.