Dracula père et fils

If you enjoyed FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS probable will like this similar flick based in a homonymous French novel wrote by Patrick Cauvin/Claude Klotz about a comic story of Count Dracula (Christopher Lee) and his half-hybrid son Ferdinand (Bernard Menez) set in 1770 at Transylvania when he was born feeding by blood, nonetheless never bite anyone until nowadays, turns out that they are spelled from Romania, Ferdinand ends up on France and Count Dracula in England.

They meet again when Count Dracula became a famous movie star, meanwhile Ferdinand survives with immigrants on France on lowest jobs, everything going upside down when both compete for same gorgeous girl Nicole (Marie-Hélène Breillat) although by opposite proposals, Ferdinand looking for a girlfriend and Dracula for a mistress of night.

Many funniest gags are scattered along the picture, often floating in Ferdinand's character in astonishing instances like as he has to give blood, trying bit corpses at morgue or working in a slaughterhouse aiming for feeding by beef's blood, once only Ferdinand bite an animal, a fluffy cat which was a tasty snack, actually it was a Christopher Lee's Dracula departure for good, underrated black comedy.

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First watch: 2024 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 8.

Possibly the worst dubbed film I have ever seen, miserable acting to boot makes this one of Lee's worst Vampire attempts. Skip this film in English, maybe the original language version redeems. Catch Love at First bite for a better attempt at satire. good luck.

"Dracula and Son" ("Dracula père et fils") is a very, very frustrating movie. There is much to like about it but the film also frustrates to no end and could have been so much better...especially to Christopher Lee's fans.

During the course of this film Lee and his son, Ferdinand, are never called Dracula...though in reality, it's pretty obvious Lee is the title character. Early in the story, Drac (Lee) decides he wants a family, so he finds a bride and they have a son, Ferdinand. Dracula has very bad luck with wives and soon she is dead...and the boy is raised by his monstrous father.

The story then shows young Ferdinand's development over the years...from a budding young sociopath to a rather ineffectual adult who is phobic about blood and killing people. So, Dad is forced to procure 'food' for the young man and they live a reasonably happy existence...until Romania is overrun by Communists and the pair are forced to leave.

On the ship, the two are assumed to be dead sailors in their coffins and the pair are tossed overboard! Ferdinand ends up in Paris and Dad ends up in London. Ferdinand's life is a mess....as he's hungry but too timid to actually bite anyone. As for Dad, however, he lands on his feet and makes a fortune playing vampires in horror films!! What's next? Unfortunately it's a slow, slow descent into a confusing finale and the laughs begin to dwindle when they meet again.

This film looks almost like it was written by two folks who never consulted the other or read each other's scripts. In one, it's a cute comedy. In the other, it's a horror film with a weird Oedipal angle...one that just never works. According to IMDB, this is because the film was severely edited down for the English language version and as a result of ham-fisted editing is a mess....when it SHOULD have been amazing. The bottom line is that I wanted to love the film, and did love a few portions. But the overall effect is confusing and dull...and should have been so much better.

By the way, one neat thing about this French film is that Lee not only played the part in French (one of languages with which he was fluent) and dubbed himself into English!

Count Dracula had a son, by the name of Ferdinand. He's a shy and a good nature young man, not very happy to be a vampire. He don't want to bite people because he don't want to hurt them. So he bites rats and cats. His father becomes a movie star - playing, of course, a vampire - and fells in love with a young woman who reminds him his wife. But Ferdinand's in love with the girl too and don't want his father to bite the woman. Fun story of black humour, with great Christopher Lee making fun of his famous role of Dracula. But images are a little bit too dark and sometimes there's dull moments. Watch for funny lines like: Ferndinand, finish your blood and go to bed. Or : Ferdinand, don't play bowling with your mothers ashes. Good bloody fun could have been better, but it's pleasant to watch,

Now, I happened to stumble upon the 1976 movie "Dracula Père Et Fils" (aka "Dracula and Son") by random chance here in 2024, and it was actually a movie that I had never heard about. But seeing that the movie had Christopher Lee in the leading role, of course there was no doubt about me sitting down to watch it.

However, I didn't know that it was a horror comedy, much less a French movie at that. So I have to say that the movie turned out to be quite something else than what I was expecting. I was, of course, expecting a traditional "Dracula" movie, as it had Christopher Lee in the role, and I was sorely disappointed.

Unfortunately I sat through an English dubbed version of the movie, and a rather bland dub at that. The voice they had for Christopher Lee was nowhere near his full, majestic normal voice. And it just wasn't the same. I actually doubt that having had the original voices wouldn't have mattered much, because this wasn't a great movie.

The storyline in "Dracula Père Et Fils" didn't really entertain me much, truth be told. It was a forced script and there wasn't much comedy to be found. For example, the scene where Dracula bites into the blow-up doll, well, it wasn't funny, it was just cringeworthy. And you have to look even harder for the horror elements.

Writers Alain Godard, Jean-Marie Poiré, Édouard Molinaro and Patrick Cauvin didn't exactly put together a convincing or overly entertaining script.

Visually then the movie was okay. I mean, it was made in 1976, and it shows. But there is something oddly nostalgic to that, now isn't there?

This is not a movie I will ever return to watch a second time.

My rating of director Édouard Molinaro's 1976 movie "Dracula Père Et Fils" lands on a generous four out of ten stars.