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In a perfect world, the horror movies Curt Siodmak wrote during the 1940s would have been perfectly cast and masterfully executed. Even hobbled as they are, both The Wolf Man and Son of Dracula ALMOST transcend their feet of clay. But what feet of clay they have, both of them brought to the set by leading man Lon Chaney, Jr. In The Wolf Man, Chaney was carried by what may very well be the best supporting cast ever assembled. No such luck in Son of Dracula.

Son of Dracula has a neat plot, in which Dracula comes to bayou country (as Count Alucard--GET IT?) to meet the woman with which he has been corresponding. And a hot tamale she is, played by Bettie Page lookalike Louise Albritton. Once there, Dracula begins chowing down on the locals and inevitably runs afoul of our anti-heroine's friends and family. All of this is wonderfully loopy. Son of Dracula is possibly the first movie in which a character other than the obviously demented Renfield thinks that it might actually be cool to be a vampire (Goths take note). There is an interesting undercurrent of necrophilia, too, that enlivens the plot even more. All of the supporting players do an admirable job, especially the comely Ms. Albritton. Director Robert Siodmak (Curt's brother) films it all with an eye towards the absurd. But the film is undone by Chaney, who seems more suited to good natured doofus roles than to monsters in horror films. Chaney gives a grouchy, wooden performance as The Count. Was there ever an actor less suited to a role? Even the porno stars who have played Dracula gave livelier performances.

Someday, someone will rediscover the script to Son of Dracula and do it justice--and why not hope for this? After all, there are a couple of versions of Siodmak's Donovan's Brain and I Walked With a Zombie is the great movie Siodmak's other scripts promise us. Why not Son of Dracula? Okay, okay, so this is a pipe dream. Son of Dracula remains one of the great missed opportunities in film.