Son of Dracula is a 1943 horror film by
Universal and the second sequel to Bela Lugosi's
Dracula. It abandons the continuity from the last two films and takes its cues from the original Bram Stoker story.
Set around
New Orleans, the film opens with certain Count
Alucard arriving at the Dark Oaks plantation. He was invited by one Katherine Caldwell, who plans to become immortal with his help...
The eponymous count is played by Lon Chaney, Jr.
The next Universal film to feature Count Dracula would be the
Monster Mash House of Frankenstein.
This film features the examples of:
- Alucard: The Trope Namer.
- The Big Easy
- Bittersweet Ending
- Burn, Baby, Burn!: Frank destroys Dracula by burning his coffin.
- Cobweb Jungle: On the opening titles.
- Ethnic Menial Labor
- Expy: Prof. Lazlo is the foreign replacement for Prof. Van Helsing.
- Femme Fatale: Katherine is a pretty ruthless example. She would even screw over the Prince of Darkness himself to achieve her selfish goals!
- Immortality Immorality: Katherine, who has thanatophobia (a fear of death), wants to turn Frank and herself into vampires so they could live forever.
- Immune to Bullets: When Frank tries to shoot Dracula, his bullets go through him and hit Katherine, who is behind him.
- Leitmotif: Dracula has his own whenever he appears.
- Nice to the Waiter: All except Dracula.
- Non Indicative Name: It is not actually stated that the Dracula in question is the original's son; he might be the count himself.
- Not Using The V Word: Vampires don't like to be called such. They prefer "Immortal".
- Our Vampires Are Different: If they are hit by sunlight, they turn into skeletons.
- Roma: Queen Zimba, the voodoo priestess who lives in the swamps.
- Revenge of the Sequel
- Sdrawkcab Name: This film introduced the name Alucard.
- Shadow Discretion Shot
- Staking the Loved One: Frank burns Katherine's sleeping corpse in the end.
- The Starscream: Katherine has planned from the beginning to let Alucard vampirize her, then have Frank kill him — then vampirize Frank.
- Super Smoke: Vampires can turn themselves into mist in this film.
- Swamps Are Evil: Dracula hides in the bayou.
- Til Murder Do Us Part: Katherine plans to get rid of Dracula after they get married.
- Too Dumb To Stay Undead: Dracula is outsmarted by the woman he vampirizes and her boyfriend, and has been played for a fool by her from the beginning!
- Viewers Are Morons: From the beginning the film hammers the point home that Alucard is Dracula backwards
- Voluntary Shape Shifting: This is the first vampire film to have onscreen bat-transformations.
- Waking Up At The Morgue: Katherine, when her body is moved there.
- Will: Katherine manipulates her father's last will and testament to get the Dark Oaks estate.
- Word of Dante: Ever since this movie, if Dracula is shown to have a son, there'll be a good chance that his name will be Alucard. See Castlevania for what's probably the most well-known example nowadays.
- X Meets Y: Many commentators observed that this film is basically Dracula meets Double Indemnity.
- The X of Y
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