By 1936 the market for horror had changed. The Great Depression proved that people had enough to scare them without the aid of monsters. Universal gutted their horror budgets in response, which is a pity for Dracula's Daughter. The original script, based on the short story Dracula's Guest, would have featured Bela Lugosi returning as the Count and James Whale directing. We didn't get that version.
We instead are treated to two constables arriving at Carfax Abbey. There they discover the bodies of Renfield and Dracula, along with the inexplicably renamed Professor Von Helsing (Edward Van Sloan again). Von Helsing calmly explains that Renfield was killed by Count Dracula and that he killed Dracula. He had to, you see, as he was a vampire.
The police fail to believe him and arrest him. The only person the professor can think to call, instead of Jonathan Harker or Mina Seward, is his former pupil, Dr. Jeffery Garth (Otto Kruger). Dr. Garth is a star psychiatrist, so I'm not sure what use he'll be to the professor's defense.
Back at the train station, where Dracula's remains are being held, a woman in black arrives. She is Countess Mayra Zaleska (Gloria Holden). She offers the remaining constable a bribe, but resorts to hypnotism. Stealing the body away, she burns it in the woods, offering prayers over the remains and using a cross.
Why does she care? Because she is Dracula's daughter! She also wishes to be free of her vampirism, but her servant Sandor (Irving Pichel) seems to undercut her every wish, reminding her time and time again of her unholy desires.
She later breaks down and prowls the streets of London for victims. Dr. Garth, and his secretary Janet (Marguerite Churchill), however, are stumped by the professor's case. At a dinner party later, Dr. Garth bumps into the Countess, who confess she is in need of his type of medicine as she has a peculiar problem...
An interesting film, although I'm hesitant to call it a good one. Logical problems aside (how did Mayra hear of Dracula's death so suddenly? Is she actually a vampire?), Holden and Pichel save the film. Pichel is a different type of ghoul, in that he seems to enable Mayra's blood lust. Is it all in her head or is she really a vampire? What kind of film this could have been is tantalizing, but all we're left with is what we see.
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