BT1886

Lake of Dracula

“She’s beautiful in death.” A moody, Toho take on the classic Dracula story, Lake of Draculais an odd re-imagining, if not a little dull. Apparently part of a loosely connected Japanese vampire trilogy, Michio Yamamoto does deliver a genuinely interesting film with a strong gothic inspired direction. The film follows Akiko (Midori Fujita) as she relives a recurring, traumatic memory she had as a child when she came face-to-face with our yellow eyed vampire (on a side note, her dog in this memory looks to be an Cocker Spaniel, but when we go to the present it becomes a German Shepard which I find very funny). One thing leads to another and she ends up having to face off with it again later on in the film, which culminates to an awkwardly staged fight sequence in true b-grade fashion. There’s not much to talk about with the technical side as it really does not do anything too creative with the visuals or style of the film itself. I did find myself enjoying the pasty looking makeup for the vampire, which I found very reminiscent to that of the makeup for the ghosts in Carnival of Souls, so that was kind of neat. In the end, Lake of Draculadoes not do much to further the films generally weak premise and for the most part lacks the amount of Dracula I was truly hoping for.