Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.0

Lake of Dracula Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 13, 2018

Note: This film is available as part of The Bloodthirsty Trilogy.

Hammer Horror: The Warner Bros. Years almost unavoidably if kind of tangentially documented the venerable British studio’s impact in the United States due to its partnership with what was then called Warner Brothers — Seven Arts, but Arrow’s new Bloodthirsty Trilogy proves that Hammer’s influence reached far beyond just the shores of the United States, in case there had been any doubt. As the cheerful Kim Newman mentions in an appealing overview included on this two disc set as a supplement, there have been a lot of iconic Japanese horror films through the years going back to the earliest days of cinema, including any number of so-called J-Horror outings that were ultimately adapted into English language entries (Ring), but what may interest horror fans most about The Bloodthirsty Trilogy is this trio of films’ obvious homages to Hammer stylistic proclivities as well as certain plot mechanics. That said, all three of the films in The Bloodthirsty Trilogy definitely have a Japanese sensibility often focusing on the influence of supernatural phenomena, a subtext of sorts that in its own way points both backward to some trends Newman outlines as well as to what would become the future of Japanese horror as evidenced by the glut of 21st century films that gained international audiences. All three of the films in this set are midlevel programmers (even Newman confesses that after having seen each of the trilogy several times he has a hard time remembering them and had to refer to his notes to prepare for his interview for the Blu-ray), and so those searching for obscure, undiscovered masterpieces may be at least a little let down, but all three films have spooky elements and some directorial flair courtesy of Michio Yamamoto.

It becomes evident upon making your way through the two films subsequent to The Vampire Doll that certain template elements had been set by the first film, and that they were considered successful enough (or at least contributed to the overall success of the first film enough) that they were repeated again (and again). The most obvious of these may be the spectral woman ghost in white (a trope that Kim Newman spends some time dissecting in his fun supplementary piece), but there are others as well. One of the kind of funnier if admittedly tangential ones is another glancing callback to James Whale’s The Old Dark House, one that presentationally at least may be even closer to its source than the referent I cited in The Vampire Doll Blu-ray review. When a little girl named Akiko loses control of her little dog Leo, she goes traipsing off into the woods where she comes across an ancient, seemingly abandoned, house. When she gets close to it, suddenly out of the bushes jumps a shaggy haired old guy who for all the world looks like a Japanese version of the Boris Karloff character from the Whale film. That old man will return late in the film for another “Moishe the Explainer” moment which is much like the one offered in the first of the Bloodthirsty Trilogy. (From a production design standpoint, the interior of this house bears more than a passing resemblance to the interior of the main house utilized in The Vampire Doll, looking like a slightly redressed version of the same basic set.)

The film segues forward eighteen years or so to see Akiko Kashiwagi (Midori Fujita) all grown up and still with a complete lack of control over a (new) dog. She’s also haunted by what she thinks is a recurring dream about her childhood dog running off and her encounter at a haunted house (there are a couple of other reveals about that house presented in the film’s opening vignette that haven’t been spoiled in this review). Akiko is a teacher working on a seemingly therapeutic painting (of a huge Sauron-like yellow eye) at her lakeside home, where her nearest neighbor Kyusaku (Kaku Takashina) takes delivery of a giant shipping crate from a decidedly unfriendly truck driver. It of course turns out to be a coffin from some guy named Dracula or something, though certain elements of how exactly it came to be shipped or why in fact it was shipped to Kyusaku are probably better left unquestioned.

There’s really not a lot of mystery in Lake of Dracula with the vampire (Shin Kishida) clearly identified from the get go, and the fact that Akiko really did have a horrifying experience in her childhood never really in doubt. There are a number of competing subplots working their way out, including the travails of Akiko’s sister Natsuko (Sanae Emi), who has a crush on Akiko’s fiancé Takashi Saeki (Choei Takahashi), but who turns out to be a “bride” of a different sort (if you catch my drift, which I’m sure you do). Saeki himself attempts to help Akiko come to terms with what she thinks is a recurring dream (nightmare?), but is forced to confront his own insistence that everything has a rational explanation in a spectacular showdown scene the caps the film.

Lake of Dracula Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

All three films in The Bloodthirsty Trilogy are presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Arrow Video with AVC encoded 1080p transfers in 2.35:1. Arrow's insert booklet provides the following fairly generic verbiage on the transfers:

The films in The Bloodthirsty Trilogy are presented in their original aspect ratio of 2.35:1 with mono audio. The Vampire Doll, Lake of Dracula and Evil of Dracula were remastered from the original film preservation film elements by Toho Co., Ltd. and delivered as High Definition masters to Arrow Films. Additional picture restoration work was completed at R3store Studios, London.

All three of these films look pretty similar in terms of palette reproduction and grain resolution, and all three have been restored to a point where any age related wear and tear is virtually negligible. I'm assuming "preservation film elements" may not mean original camera negatives, since all three of these films have a slightly "dupey" look at times, with contrast fluctuations and blacks that can be on the milky side at times, as well as grain that can look fairly thick quite a bit of the time. Some day for night material also can have a slightly gray-green appearance. While the palettes in all three films resonate with some authenticity, things looked slightly brown to my eyes in all three films, skewing flesh tones toward "Egyptian makeup" territory and tending to push "Hammer red" blood tones slightly toward orange hues at times. Clarity is somewhat variable at times as well, and in fact it looks like focus pulling was a challenge in all three films at selected moments. Some opticals can look a little rough, including flashback sequences that are featured in all three films.

Lake of Dracula Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

All three films in The Bloodthirsty Trilogy feature LPCM Mono tracks in the original Japanese. The trilogy sports some rather unusual music, with astringent modernist orchestral cues being mixed with some electronic instruments and even (in the third film) a more "pop-ish" almost Bacharach quality at times, and fidelity support good if sometimes kind of brash sounding rendering of the music in all three films. Dialogue and effects are also reproduced with good prioritization and no discernable damage like distortion or dropouts.

While I didn't see any mention of this in the insert booklet or on the documentation included with the release, and while the disc menu also doesn't provide necessary information, it turns out that both Lake of Dracula and Evil of Dracula include English dubs presented via LPCM Mono. You can access these tracks by toggling the Audio button on your remote. The English dubs have marginally lower amplitude and a somewhat boxier sound than the Japanese tracks, and of course feature almost hilariously loose sync in terms of dialogue matching lip movements.

Lake of Dracula Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This is the latest multi-film release from Arrow where at least some of the films share a disc, and so supplements on that particular disc are not necessarily tied to a particular film.

Disc Two contains Lake of Dracula and Evil of Dracula and the following supplements:

• Original Trailers

  The Vampire Doll (1080p; 2:04)

  
  

  Lake of Dracula (1080p; 2:12)

  
  

  Evil of Dracula (1080p; 2:22)

Lake of Dracula Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Both Kim Newman in his on screen supplement as well as the really interesting essay by Jasper Sharp included in this set's insert booklet make the case that kind of hilariously The Bloodthirsty Trilogy either subliminally or (in the case of Lake of Dracula) overtly makes the case that the vampires are (or sprang from) interlopers from another land, since Japan would never foster such hideous creatures. It's a kind of passing plot point that nonetheless makes the case that Yamamoto and Toho wanted their vampiric cake and to eat it, too, meaning they wanted to indulge in the "delights" of Hammer-esque bloodsuckers while keeping a certain maybe even jingoistic distance from the subject. Lake of Dracula is in some ways the most "interior" of the three films in The Bloodthirsty Trilogy due to its emphasis on Akiko's psychological frailty, but what it lacks in outright scares it makes up for with a rather interesting almost melancholic mood. Arrow provides a release with decent technical merits for those considering a purchase.