Removing a stake from a dead vampire in bones instantly revives him as well as his clothes.
At the horror exhibit, the burgermaster guy doesn't believe in vampire nonsense, however just 3 years earlier, he drove the original Lampini guy out of town because of all the past history with Frankenstein and the Wolf man in the village
By this point there was no continuity except for the Wolfman and the Frankenstein monster being frozen after the flood in FMTW, which in itself is a stretch because the castle was washed completely away. In this installment the castle is still standing, though it's in a lot worse shape. The village itself, which was Visaria in the previous film was now the village of Frankenstein, with Visaria now being the village Dr. Neiman's lab is located in.
Just have to overlook this stuff and enjoy the film for what it is. By this point story and continuity were apparently not nearly as important as squeezing as many monsters as possible into one flick. Still a fun movie with some great performances.
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SPOILERS
There wasn't much of a continuity to break in regards to the first Dracula film - it ends with him getting stabbed. This one, Dracula is reenacted by removing the stake. Not that this film is meant to be a direct continuation of Lugosi's film, I'm just saying it doesn't directly contradict it either.
Although I never saw 'Daughter of Dracula' and the other Dracula one with Chaney so maybe it contradicts those ones.
In any event Dracula's role is pretty insignificant in this one.
These movies never necessarily took themselves particularly seriously. They were almost a precursor to the other horror slasher films like Freddy, Jason and Michael Meyers where the monster can't die. Convenient for sequels. However be that as it may, it also adds a bit to the myth I suppose and if the filmmakers didn't take it 100% seriously, neither should you. They're fun.
As for this film, no doubt just the sheer presence of Boris Karloff adds a great deal of fun to the picture.
I can barely even remember House of Dracula (not available in Region 1 DVD) but I remember it being in the same vein and being decent. John Carradine was give a little more characterization compared to his rather inconsequential role here. The blood transfusions added a little something interesting to the character. But it was definitely running out of steam, for sure.
There was actually huge continuity problems with Dracula. Dracula in the original was staked to death in England. In the next film, Draculas Daughter, she burns his remains into ashes. In House Of Frankenstein, somehow we have Draculas bones in Europe somewhere in Germany
shareI guess if you wanted to conjecture about the continuity for Drac, as others have mentioned, his remains were taken by Countess Marya Zaleska in Dracula's Daughter and burned. We can assume the fire is what left Dracula's remains in a skeletal state & we could also assume that the Countess took Drac's remains back to Transylvania with her.
Which is where George Zucco's character from this film comes in when he explains how he found Drac's skeleton in his castle. The film Son of Dracula has no bearing in any of this since Lon Chaney was playing Drac's son, so there you have it.
Btw, I love House of Frankenstein. House of Dracula on the other hand I can skip entirely.
I don't care for either House film in the series. The plot for Abbott and Costello/Frankenstein film actually had a great plot which included all 3 monsters. Wish that plot would have been used in the House films
shareWith all due respect to my learned IMDb colleague, Chaney actually played Drac senior, and not his son at all, in Son of Dracula.
Wonder why they kept that title, instead of something like Return of Dracula???
I confess that upon reading the S of D board, it is evident that the jury is still out on whether he was actually Drac senior. My take was always that he was not a "son" or descendant, but old Drac himself. I may be in grievous error.