[Sculpt]

House of Dracula (1945)
6/10

Dracula (John Carradine) breaks into Dr. Franz Edelmann (Onslow Stevens) house and wakes him up at 5 AM while he's asleep in his reading chair and asks him to cure him of his vampirism. Later that day Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr) asks to be cured of his lycan... let's just call it werewolf-ism. Plus, the doctor's hunchbacked female assistant has been waiting to be cured for even longer. And he finds Frankenstein's Monster in the sea caves below his mansion. There's a lot to do.

The dialogue of the opening scene is actually well done and enticing. Can Dracula really want a cure? Are you sure you can trust him? There's also a well-done scene where one of the doctor's assistants is playing Moonlight Sonata and Dracula helps morph it into a trippy horror piece. There are some things to like in this film, and it's intriguing to find out how or if the problems get solved.

Ultimately, the dialogue and plot become annoyingly simple-minded and dull. Dracula never discusses why he wants to be human. None of the monsters fight each other. Each plotline has a disappointingly abrupt ending.

************SPOILER*****************
I was intrigued by the relationship between Dracula and Dr Edelmann. Dracula also starts a relationship with one of the assistants. It would have been fascinating to hear Dracula talk about why he no longer wanted to be a vampire or lie about it. Perhaps these are only interests of modern film. Eventually, Dracula deceives Dr. Edelmann, and they never even have a discussion about the betrayal. Of course, films are not shot in chronological order, but the film feels like it was... as if halfway through shooting they were told they had a week to finish it.