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Friday, January 19, 2024

Short Film: Il figlio di Dracula


This was a short by Corrado Farina from 1960 that hits the 20-minute mark. This is a much earlier film that his superb Hanno Cambiato Faccia (They Have Changed Their Face) and was included as an extra on the new Severin Film edition of the feature (found in the boxset Danza Macabre vol 2) – though it is also on YouTube without subtitles.

Dracula and son

Farina shot this in Super-8 film and the resultant grain over the black and white offers a superb atmosphere for the film. We start with a narration that suggests we are in the Carpathians, it mentions Dracula and the villagers rising up to rid themselves of the evil. They dug a tunnel for disposal of the corpse to avoid burial on hallowed earth.

Dracula and wife

We then move to two vampires – the male refers to himself as Dracula and the bride (wife) of Dracula laments about their son. He is 21 and has to develop into a full vampire by biting and drinking from a virgin victim. The Dad’s fangs/teeth are so bad that one can understand why he wouldn’t want to! The son, who makes an appearance, is sent out to fulfil his vampiric potential.

creepy messenger

He quickly makes the acquaintance of a young lady who has fallen, helps her up and walks her home. This leads to him being visited by a creepy messenger (I thought he was really effective as a character) with a message from Dad wondering what he is up to. So, he has familial pressure, sudden onset feelings for the girl and a decision to make as to whether he wants to please his father or follow his heart…

At the time of writing there was no IMDb page. The YouTube video is embedded below but it is without English subtitles.

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