COUNT DRACULA'S GREAT LOVE

Count Dracula's Great Love opens outside a creepy old sanitorium in the Carpathian Mountains as two delivery men arrive with a large, heavy man-shaped crate. The owner, Doctor Wendell Marlowe (Paul Naschy), has just purchased the sanitorium, but has not yet moved in. Realizing that these rich castle-owning types have money and jewels just lying around, they decide to wander about and see if there is anything they can steal. One is struck in the head with an ax and the other gets his throat ripped out by a man in a black cape with velvet lining.

Meanwhile, a stagecoach loaded with four beautiful young women - Karen (Haydee Politoff), Senta (Rosanna Yanni), Marlene (Ingrid Garbo), and Elke (Mirta Miller) and their friend Imre Polvi (Vic Winner), a strapping young male, loses a carriage wheel while traveling through the infamous Borgo Pass. When the stagecoach driver is killed in a freak accident, the five passengers seek shelter from an oncoming storm in the nearby sanitorium, where they are welcomed by Doctor Marlowe. Their host invites them into his home and lets them stay for as long as they need to.

Of course, Marlowe is really Count Dracula. It is not before long that the new guests are bitten one by one, composing Dracula's new army of the undead - save for the virginal Karen. Dracula seeks the rebirth of his daughter Radna and in order to bring about her resurrection, Dracula must complete a blood ritual and convince Karen to voluntarily join him as his immortal bride in eternal darkness.

He seduces all of the girls but Karen, and then chains them in his dungeon. At the end of the film, he kills them by exposing them to sunlight. When he seduces Karen, he knows he has found true love. He tells Karen that he loves her and he cannot go through with the ritual. Karen rejects his offer to become one of the living dead, so he commits suicide by thrusting a wooden stake into his own heart and before he dies, he utters her name.

Dracula refuses to complete the resurrection ritual, confesses his love for Karen, and commits suicide by staking himself when she rejects becoming his immortal bride.

The ending pivots from classic vampire horror to tragic romance, as Dracula’s feelings for Karen override his supernatural ambitions. Instead of dooming her to undeath, he chooses self-destruction, adding a note of doomed nobility to Naschy’s interpretation of the legendary count.