The story of Dracula has been done to death so it was nice to see something a little different where the female vampire wasn't a lesbian. Now, I'm all for lesbian vampires but they have become a little bit of a cliché in the bloodsucker genre. At any rate, Dracula's Widow is a fun slice of 80's cheese that features aging actors, prosthetic effects, and was directed by Nicolas Cage's brother.

Sylvia Kristel (of Emmanuelle fame) stars as Vanessa, the wife of Dracula who shows up in the loading bay of a wax museum in Hollywood as part of a shipment from Romania. Soon after her arrival, she begins to messily feed on a couple of victims and then takes control of the museum's owner, Raymond, turning him into a modern day Renfield. Vanessa seems a little confused throughout the film as she wants to go back to Romania to reunite with her hubby but she also gets in on with Raymond in one scene. She also wants to even the score with Van Helsing's grandson after she discovers that his grandpappy killed the love of her life. Along for the ride is a hard boiled cop named Hap Lannon (who provides a film noir voiceover and was the best character in the movie) and Raymond's girlfriend, Jenny, whose last name Harker is obviously a reference to the book but this point is not relevant to the story.

From a silly B-movie point of view, this flick had some good moments. It had a 80's atmosphere throughout complete with bad hair and clothes, fog machines, neon, and overstated lighting that brought Creepshow to mind at a few points. The thing I didn't like about this film was that I thought the idea of Dracula's widow trying to get back to her husband was quite cool but the filmmakers didn't capitalize on what they could have done with the idea nor did they try very hard to ensure that the plot made sense.

I am not usually one to nitpick but why would she be shipped from Romania to Los Angeles if all she wanted was to be reunited with her husband back in Romania? It also doesn't make a whole lot of sense that she doesn't realize her husband is dead until Van Helsing's grandson and Raymond tell her so. She is a vampire, I think she would have realized by now that her spouse was no longer with us as she has not seen him for a couple of hundred years. At any rate, had they made this a straight up revenge movie with Dracula's widow hunting down the descendants of those involved in his demise, I think it would have been much more effective. There was also the pointless romance between the not-very-hetero character Raymond and his girlfriend. The only purpose I could find to this relationship was to allow actress Rachel Jones to take a brief bath (which was nice).

At the end of the day, this film had some early Todd Masters effects as Vanessa turned into a monster when she was feeding but overall was pretty ho-hum. There was a strange part in the middle of the film where Vanessa takes on a gang of Satan worshipers that got pretty messy and a few other gory moments but nothing terribly memorable aside from a transformation scene from bat to monster. If you are a fan of 80's movies, you should enjoy the nostalgia factor of the Hollywood of the time. The main reason I watched this was to see Sylvia Kristel in a horror movie and I think she is the only woman in history that I don't think looks good with black hair and bangs (even though it was obviously a wig). I guess she will always be that young vixen Emmanuelle in my brain. (Josh Pasnak, 11/7/05)

Directed By: Christopher Coppola.
Written By: Christopher Coppola, Kathryn Ann Thomas.

Starring: Sylvia Kristel, Josef Sommer, Lenny Von Dohlen, Marc Coppola.