| Director | Jesús Franco |
|---|
Jonathan Harker, a lawyer traveling from London to Transylvania to secure property for Count Dracula, arrives at Bistritz to stay for the night. There, he is warned by a concerned lady against continuing his journey. Believing that her concerns are rooted in peasant superstition, he ignores her, but starts to feel unnerved by the way everyone looks at him. Harker later arrives at the Borgo Pass, where the Count's mysterious coachman picks him up.
Harker disembarks at Castle Dracula, and the coach immediately rushes off. Harker approaches the main door and meets a thin, tall, gaunt old man. He turns out to be Dracula and takes Harker to his bedchamber. There, Harker notices that Dracula casts no reflection.
Later, Harker goes to sleep and wakes in an ancient crypt where three beautiful vampiresses harass him. Dracula rushes into the room and orders them to leave Harker alone. He then gives them a baby to feed on. Harker wakes up screaming in his room and assumes it was a nightmare, but two small wounds on his neck indicate otherwise.
Harker soon realises he is a prisoner, and tries to escape by climbing out his bedroom window. He finds his way back to the crypt where Count Dracula and his three brides rest in coffins. Harker runs out of the crypt screaming, and jumps out of the castle's tower into the river below.
Harker wakes up in a private psychiatric clinic outside London, owned by Dr. Abraham Van Helsing, in the care of Dr. John Seward. He is told he was found delirious in a river near Budapest. No one believes his story about Castle Dracula until Van Helsing finds the two punctures on Harker's neck. Harker's fiancée Mina Murray and her close friend Lucy Westenra also arrive to help take care of him. Unbeknownst to them, Count Dracula has followed Harker back to England and now resides in an abandoned abbey close to the hospital.
As Mina takes care of Harker, Lucy's health strangely declines. Dracula has been secretly appearing to her by night and drinking her blood, growing younger as he feeds off his victim. Quincey Morris, Lucy's fiancé, joins Drs. Seward and Van Helsing in an attempt to save Lucy by giving her blood transfusions.
One of the patients at the clinic, R. M. Renfield, becomes of considerable interest to the men. Renfield is classed as a zoophagus: he eats flies and insects in order to consume their life, believing that each life he consumes increases his own. He reacts violently whenever Dracula is nearby. He later dies from shock.
Lucy eventually dies, becomes one of the undead and murders a young child. The ordeal is put to an end when Quincey, Seward and Van Helsing ambush Lucy, stake her through the heart and decapitate her. Harker, restored to health, joins the group who now are sure that Count Dracula is a vampire.
Dracula turns his attention to Mina and begins corrupting her as well. Van Helsing suddenly suffers a stroke and begins using a wheelchair. Dracula visits him, mocking his attempts to destroy him. But Van Helsing regains mobility, gets out of his wheelchair, and is able to walk again. Quincey, Harker and Dr. Seward track Dracula to the abandoned abbey, but he has fled to Transylvania with the aid of a traveling Romani band.
As Count Dracula's Gypsy servants take him back to his castle, he is trailed by Harker and Quincey. After battling the Romani, the two heroes find Dracula's coffin and set it on fire. Dracula, unable to escape in full daylight, is consumed by flames.