'BRIDES OF DRACULA'.........YOUNG DRAC'S A MOMMA'S BOY......

Brides Of Dracula (1960)  Actor Frank Langella's impossibly handsome,  dashing, hunka-hunka-burning-teeth Dracula was considered quite the breakthrough in 1979........but let's properly credit Hammer Films with giving us the first heart-throb bloodsucker, way back in 1960.

            David Peel, with his swirling, impeccably styled blonde locks making him look like he's wearing cake icing on top of his head, became the George Lazenby of Draculas....... given a one shot bite at the role before Christopher Lee could be permanently wooed back to the blood bank.....

             Even better, the film's screenplay set up a lurid, depraved backstory for Peel's male-pinup Dracula......re-inventing him as some sort of romantic, male Rapunzel, chained up in his castle tower by his haughty, aristocratic mother. (Martita Hunt).

             Momma blames herself for Sonny Boy's conversion to a vampire, implying she let him hang around too much with the Transylvanian jet set. But like any mom, she loves him enough to always provide him with snacks........letting him dip his incisors into pretty young things she invites for overnight stays........thereby turning the castle into a gothic Bates Motel.

             But this time Peel works his wiles on the latest guest (Yvonne Monlaur), convincing her to set him free......and in in a move that left intellectual film critics howling with delight, Peel singles out Mommy as his first official free-at-last victim, leaving poor Martita Hunt with fangs to go along with her arthritis.....

              Our swoon-worthy Dracula wastes no time, turning himself into a huge bat that looks like a Stealth bomber that skimmed an oil slick.......he flaps right over to a girls finishing school for an all night, all-you-can-bite buffet......

             Never fear......though Christopher Lee may have temporarily deserted Drac-dom, Peter Cushing's Dr. Van Helsing shows up with plenty of holy water, crucifixes and ready to administer tender loving vampire therapy with a wooden mallet and stakes.

              Much Hammer goodness to sink your...uh...teeth into here, including the insanely giggling Freda Jackson, functioning as a vampire nanny.  Ripe color, pulsating nervous music, voluptuous Hammer starlets waiting to get their necks perforated......pure Halloween heaven.

             And with young Drac disrespecting his mother, it's the only Hammer film that, at the time of its release, critics referred to as a mixture of Tennessee Williams and Bram Stoker.  You can debate that among yourselves if you like.....as for us, it's just bloody fun. 3 pints of AB-Negative....(***)