Dracula on Holiday – review

Director: Robbie Moffat

Release date: 2021

Contains spoilers

This is a strange one, and no mistake. A Scottish film, set in Scotland and clearly shot (in part) in Scotland, but when the primary characters go to the village near which they are staying, the scenes were shot in Marazion, Cornwall – recognisable by landmark buildings (and the name of the town on one establishment’s sign). Why this was the case is unclear, after all there are plenty of picturesque villages that could have been locations in Scotland. Not that it’s the hugest issue in the world, but it struck as odd.

breath-taking landscapes

The film starts off with a voice-over by Lucy (Suzanne Kendall) who talks about it being a time for change and that her love, known as miserable, was – she hoped – going to change in outlook and attitude as they went on holiday to Scotland. This is a chance to rediscover life, it is suggested. This is followed by a voice-over by Renfield (Chris Bearne) who muses that his master is a serial killer.

Lucy and Renfield

They arrive at a train station, Lucy and Renfield on foot and a coffin contains Dracula (Ed Ward). A couple of blokes (described as gypsies) arrive and carry the coffin as the other two follow – Lucy sheltering beneath an umbrella. Eventually – having stopped several times – the gypsies push the coffin down a hill. Vlad emerges from his coffin – his hands hiding him from the direct sun. However, despite the rude awakening he is rather taken with the land.

waking Dracula

This feeling is only increased when they reach the castle he believes they are to stay in (there are lifts in the dialogue directly from Stoker’s novel at this point) but they do not stop there. They continue to a small cottage – this is the holiday home that has been booked and Vlad is not impressed. Nevertheless, he tries to make the best of it for Lucy’s sake. Renfield has purchased some blood sausage for them and, despite reservations, Dracula discovers he really likes it.

the Time Warp...ish

So there isn’t much in the way of plot, rather a series of interrelated encounters including meeting Flora (Edith Glad), daughter of one of the village undertakers, and another vampire, Wilmena (Apple Yang), wife of the other undertaker. Lucy becomes quite taken with young Flora. We discover that Lucy and Dracula aren’t married as his estranged wife will not give him a divorce. We also get Dracula in cape and speedos on the beach and a bootleg version of the Time Warp that was so blatant they might get away with copyright issues as it was arguably parody.

Wilmena and Lucy

For the most part the acting is pure ham, so much so that stagey seems too generous a word and yet the affectations worked in an odd way. It would be fair to say that the primaries seemed to be enjoying themselves and spread the luvvie-ness in thick slathers. The humour is inconsistent but does work some of the time. This was non-offensive for the most part but it won’t set the world alight either. 4 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.