Son of Dracula
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Caution: spoilers.

This is the second sequel to "Dracula", following "Dracula's Daughter". It came out in 1943, and it's possible I saw it on TV sometime in the late 80s or early 90s, but if so, I didn't remember anything about it. I watched it on DVD in October 2024.

This appears to be set around the time it was made, whereas the first two movies were set sometime in the 19th century. There's a woman named Katherine "Kay" Caldwell, who has apparently spent some time in Hungary, where she met a man named Count Alucard (Lon Chaney Jr.), and invited him to visit her at her family's plantation in New Orleans. On the night of his arrival, he secretly kills Kay's father, whose estate is later divided between Kay and her sister, Claire. Meanwhile, Kay's fiancé, Frank Stanley, grows suspicious of Alucard. So does a doctor named Harry Brewster, who noticed that the count's name spelled backwards is "Dracula". He contacts a Hungarian professor named Lazlo, who is an expert in vampires. Brewster and Lazlo believe Alucard must be a descendant of Dracula. Then Alucard and Kay get married. When Frank finds out, he tries to kill Alucard, but the bullets go through him and kill Kay. Frank confesses killing her to Brewster, who then goes to the Caldwell estate and finds Kay alive and well. She and Alucard tell him to tell everyone else to stay away from now on. But Frank has now gone to the police to turn himself in, and the sheriff doesn't know whether to believe Frank or Brewster.

Well... a bunch more stuff happens, but I feel like I've spoiled enough already. I won't spoil how it all ends. I will say I liked this movie slightly more than the second one, but less than the first one (though I'm not sure the first one is actually better than this, it may just get bonus points for being the original). This movie... I kept thinking it felt like a soap opera (a fairly good one), and it brought "Dark Shadows" to mind, even though I haven't actually watched that series. Maybe that's just me, though. Anyway, there were things I liked about it, such as vampires turning into bats, or mist. And there were things I didn't so much like about it, like Alucard floating across water, at one point. Vampires shouldn't be able to do that. And I didn't think too highly of Chaney's acting. And I wasn't comfortable with the Black servants seeming sort of like how slaves were depicted in historical movies made in this era, like Gone with the Wind, or something. But overall, I thought the story was kind of decent. Not great, but at least a bit better than I expected.