I certainly agree with that sentiment. The very poor direction, third rate camera work, and an incoherent script drag it down. So much so that I think it offsets the positives this movie brings to the table (mainly the cast and wonderful Bruno Nicolai score) and in the end makes it a mediocre adaptation of Dracula.
FINALLY got to see a Jess Franco film after seeing his name pop up in many horror discussions over the years, and it was a huge letdown. If this is typical of his work then I won't go out of my way to find more considering his poor direction seems to be my biggest issue with the movie. He certainly doesn't endear himself to me with the way he runs down the Hammer Draculas in the DVD supplements either.
As far as the radical zooming and close-ups, I'm thoroughly convinced much of that style stems from Sergio Leone's films and the spaghetti western boom that immediately followed it and was still quite active in 1970 - a large portion of which were Italian-Spanish co productions filmed in and around Spain. The intensity is genuine in many of those films as it was basically an invention of necessity. Extreme close-ups photographed very well in the Techniscope format and it was quite an effective technique. It was basically a cinematic trademark for movies like The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. In this instance though, it's just horribly copied and overused for a 1.37 aspect ratio film process not even close to being Techniscope.
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