El Gran Amor del Conde Dracula, or Count Draculas Great Love as it's more commonly know among English speaking audiences is set in 1870 & starts with two hired hands delivering a large heavy wooden crate to an abandoned sanatorium high on a mountain in the middle of nowhere. Sensing an opportunity to make some extra money the men open the crate to see what's inside & if it's worth stealing, they discover a coffin & human remains. Not wanting to admit defeat they try searching the sanatorium for valuable items they can steal, before long they are both murdered by a shadowy unknown assailant who obviously doesn't like thieves. Cue opening credits. El Gran Amor del Conde Dracula then introduces the viewer to five companions travelling through the area & passing the old sanatorium by stagecoach. One man named Imre Polvi (Victor Alcazar as Vic Winner) his secret love Marlene (Ingrid Garbo) & three other women Senta (Rosanna Yani), Karen (Haydee Politoff) & finally Elke (Mirta Miller). Unfortunately for them the wheel on their coach becomes loose & flies off down a hill lost forever. More bad luck follows as the coach driver is killed in an accident when a horse tries to bolt. The five friends decide to seek shelter in the abandoned sanatorium, once there they knock the door & an Austrian Doctor named Wendell Marlow (co-writer Jacinto Molina under his usual pseudonym of Paul Naschy) who now owns the sanatorium, answers. After hearing their situation Marlow invites the five travellers to stay as long as they want. As they bed down for the night Karen gets up to close a window blowing in the wind when she is scared by a man watching her from the shadows, Dr. Marlow assures Karen that it was probably a tramp seeking shelter. However the strange, unsettling & unnerving experiences don't stop there as members of the five friends begin to disappear without trace & there is a real air of unease about the whole situation. Why does Marlow only appear at night & never during the day? Why are there so many bear-traps around the sanatorium's grounds? Could the tales & rumour's of Vampirism & Count Dracula that surround the sanatorium really be true? Watch it & find out!This Spansish production was co-written & directed by Javier Aguirre & I thought it was a really enjoyable Euro sex/gore exploitation film that has a stab at some genuine style & depth under the blood & breasts. The script by Aguirre, Molina & Alberto S.Insua is fast paced, never drags or becomes too boring & maintained my interest throughout. The traditional Dracula & Vampire themes are present but El Gran Amor del Conde Dracula adds a few unexpected twists of it's own & tries to be a little different. I liked the idea of Count Dracula setting bear-traps to catch local people who he then sinks his fangs into as they are immobilised but still alive. I loved the ending as well which in my opinion was a brave decision by Aguirre to have things turn out as they did, Count Dracula sacrificing himself because he has fallen in love with Karen works very well & I was pleasantly surprised about how things turned out for everyone without a happy 'hero kills the bad guy & gets the pretty girl' clichéd ending in sight, with better dubbing, dialogue & acting this could have been a really emotional climax. Which brings me the negative points quite nicely. The dubbing is terrible even for a Euro exploitation film, the dialogue is very stiff, unnatural & at times almost comical. This in turn distracts from the original performances which in all fairness might have been good but not when everyone talks & sounds the way they do. Paul Naschy is a little on the short side but still makes for a good on screen Dracula, there is also a nod towards his Werewolf films when howling is heard in the night & he comments on it. The photography in El Gran Amor del Conde Dracula by Raul Perez Cubero is at times beautiful, the way shafts of light streak through the trees during some dawn & dusk shots as mist swirls past, the lighting throughout the film is also very atmospheric & as a whole the film is a pleasure to watch & has a real style about it. The production design is similarly impressive with the lush detailed interiors of the sanatorium, the dark underground catacombs lit by flickering candles, props & costumes rivalling any period piece Hammer made around the same time. Good solid score by Carmelo A.Bernaola, too. Now to the exploitation elements in which El Gran Amor del Conde Dracula doesn't disappoint either, there is plenty of neck biting & dripping blood (usually on naked women's bodies & breasts), whippings, killings, plus there's plenty of naked female flesh & sex as well. I suppose I write this review as a massive horror/gore/exploitation fan myself & I personally found much to enjoy in El Gran Amor del Conde Dracula, having said that if you don't have a strong tolerance or liking for this type of material then I doubt you would be that impressed with it. Overall I unexpectedly really rather liked it & recommend it to anyone who is considering giving it a go but I don't think I could recommend it in the same way to a casual unknowing viewer. A solid Euro horror with more style & depth than most but certainly not for everyone.
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