Your Daily Dracula – Ed Ward, Dracula on Holiday (2021)
kimnewman
Your Daily Dracula – Ed Ward, Dracula on Holiday (2021)
This low-budget Scots film – written and directed by Robbie Moffat – is a very odd duck. It has lovely locations and features much more sun (and fewer midges) than the average holiday in Scotland (or vampire movie). It includes a farting vampire routine (cf: Vampire Hookers), a musical number (‘the Love Wrap’, which I misheard as ‘the Lovecraft’) which barely changes the tune of ‘the Time Warp’ from The Rocky Horror Show and the usual garlic and bat jokes … but isn’t fundamentally a comedy. A few characters, lines and plot elements are wrestled from the novel – and may be distantly inspired by Bram Stoker’s trips to Cruden Bay, which he liked almost as much as Whitby – then plays as a Local Hero take on Love at First Bite or a family-friendly rethink of Blood for Dracula.
Chunky, moustached, nattily-cloaked, sunglasses-sporting Count (Ed Ward) gets away from Borgo Pass Castle with faithful retainer Renfield (John Le Mesurier lookalike Chris Bearne) carrying a comedy coffin over the landscape like an inconveniently non-trundle suitcase and longtime companion Lucy Westenra (Suzanne Kendall) hoping the break will deepen their relationship … though it turns out the Count has a nasty vampire wife (Sina-Valeska Jung, billed as ‘Countes’ in the end credits) who refuses to give him a divorce unless he hands over the castle and perhaps wants him to stay in a black and white world of blood-drinking and murder (though the film refrains from depicting much of that).
Mostly, Dracula and Lucy make friends with locals whose names are tweaked from Stoker’s – young Flora Goddaming (Edith Glad), undertaker Stewart (Joe Rainbow) and his wife Wilamena (Apple Yang). It takes a holiday from the usual business of having a plot – scenes just happen, sights are looked at, characters potter about, much like your average holiday home movie – but works up to a happy ending and a church wedding. It’s befuddling, but not unamiable.
