It is the first time John Carridine played the role of Dracula, brought back to life by Boris Karloff, not playing Frankenstein's Monster, but a mad scientist, Dr Niemann, determined to gain vengeance on those who imprisoned him.
In a continuity be damned move, it seems the Count wasn't killed in London, but Transylvania, and his body wasn't dispatched by his daughter. Instead, the staked skeleton ended up in the possession of George Zucco's traveling Chamber of Horrors.
Zucco is killed by Niemann, who then takes over the Chamber of Horrors.
And because pulling the stake out of the skeleton of a vampire is what you do when you have one, that's EXACTLY what Niemann does. He and Dracula come to an understanding and he sends the Count after one of his targets.
Dracula kills a Burgermeister that helped convict Niemann, but being Count Dracula, he can't help himself and he tries to seduce the Burgermeister's grand-daughter-in-law.
This doesn't quite work out for the Count, who's thrown under the bus first chance Niemann has.
He's back in House of Dracula though, so as usual in these movies, death isn't really the end.
My main complaint is that HoF really seems like two movies, one with Niemann and Dracula, then one with Niemann and Frankenstein's Monster and the Wolfman, and that the Dracula half is rushed.
House of Dracula will be tomorrow night's movie. Should be fun to see what they do with that. Then it'll be non-fiction for a few days as a palate cleaner.
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