Mistresses of the Dark (Part Three) - Mama Dracula

When you think back to Stoker’s depiction of Dracula – significantly more monstrous than the suave and sophisticated ‘Derby Dracula’ we think of today – one thing that doesn’t come to mind is ‘comedy’. But, ever adaptable, Dracula has often been presented with a humorous edge, all the way from The Munsters through to Hotel Transylvania. Today’s example, however, is rather less known but still a perfect fit for our exploration of female adaptations of the character – the 1980 Belgian movie Mama Dracula.

While the movie itself might be fairly obscure nowadays, it’s certainly not without star power – Mama Dracula is played by Louise Fletcher, who you may recall as the iconic Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, a role that won her the Best Actress Award at the 1975 Oscars. Mama Dracula also stars Maria Schneider, best known for her leading role in Last Tango in Paris, opposite Marlon Brando, at the age of just 19. That’s quite a leading duo for any movie. While director Boris Szulzinger is less known, he does have the dubious honour of directing Tarzoon: Shame of the Jungle, an equally unofficial depiction of a famous fictional character and the first foreign-animated film to be given an X-rating in the US.

Mama Dracula is probably something of a misnomer for our lead, who more strongly resembles Countess Bathory – indeed the plot centres on her continued efforts to find a virgin’s blood to bathe in. Finding it ever harder to procure virgins for that purpose, she enlists the help of a professor to produce a synthetic blood substitute. All of this while her two sons run a clothing shop called Vamp, which always seemed a strange sort of subplot to me.

In my research into Dracula in the media, there are many films that seem to be virtually lost or forgotten, and sometimes that’s a shame because of the interesting angle a movie takes, or just the quality it provides in its take on the story and the character of The Count. However, this might be one of those cases where it is little remembered just because of how unremarkable it was – IMDB reviews give the movie 2.8/10 on average, and the Rotten Tomatoes ‘Tomatometer’ rates it even lower at 11%. So I wouldn’t necessarily consider this particular piece a recommendation, but I think there are some interesting elements to this film that make it worth an exploration.

Dracula’s influence has been felt around Europe ever since the 1897 novel, and so this movie fits into many films from around the continent that have explored the world’s most famous vampire. And a female-led Dracula comedy is certainly an oddity in the canon of media created after Stoker’s work. So if you do decide you’re curious enough to check this one out, it is available for rent here in the UK on Amazon Prime…

Our Mistresses of the Dark series will be concluding next time around, so join us for Part 4!