Lake of Dracula (1971)

Watery Hench

While The Vampire Doll was a fantastic fusion of Western and Japanese elements with an alluring mystery, Lake of Dracula takes a more straight-laced approach but still offers just as much chills and atmosphere as its predecessor. The film has some incredible horror high points during its runtime, from a good old hide in the cupboard from the monster sequence to some drowning Gothic atmosphere, digging its hooks into the viewer right from the beginning. It wastes little time getting into the meat of things with Michio Yamamoto's incredible direction setting the tone and mood straight away, offering plenty of great scares and unnerving tension building throughout. While not delivering a new perspective on the fantasy of vampirism or Dracula, the film is absolutely gorgeous, all accompanied by some terrific performances and another jazzy musical score by Riichirō Manabe, it's not great but it works well in tandem with the film's visual design. Despite the mess of the story, that does not stop Lake of Dracula from delivering a splendid and highly atmospheric homage to the gothic icon. Offering all that a fan of blood-suckers looks for, draped in an alluring, unheimlich atmosphere and decorated with some effective moments of gore.

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