THE EMPIRE OF DRACULA (1967)
(a.k.a. EL IMPERIO DE DRACULA)
Article #443 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 6-1-2002
Posting date: 10-25-2002

Travelers stay at Dracula’s castle and find themselves in peril.

Impressive title, huh? Since it’s mostly a rehash of the situation in DRACULA, PRINCE OF DARKNESS, maybe they wanted it to sound as regal as that one. At heart, though, it’s just your basic vampire flick, and unless there is a wealth of subtleties hidden in the Spanish dialogue that I would need subtitles to understand (it’s in Spanish, undubbed and unsubtitled), it doesn’t really add anything new to the Dracula canon, unless you count seeing his name listed as Draculstein in a book. As it is, the most impressive scene is a fight on the top of moving carriage; it must have worked so well that they added a second one at the end of the movie. Incidentally, this was the first color Mexican horror film.