The owner of a wax museum receives a crate containing the titular character. She makes him her slave and starts to massacre various idiots throughout town. A hard-boiled cop slowly catches on and tries to take the fiend down.I don't get all the hate for this one. Sure, it's no masterpiece. But as a fun monster flick it works well. Good pacing and suspense. Plenty of gore and cool creature effects. I also loved the cinematography, particularly the use of colored lights. So while it may be a b-movie, it sure wasn't boring. I was entertained from beginning to end. The only bothersome problem in my opinion was the plot, which should've been more cohesive. A better outfit for the vampire widow could've helped to as she looked more like Lois Lane rather than the bride of Dracula.

When people focus on the character of Vanessa in this movie, they are actually missing the point of the film. This isn't about vampires, this isn't about sex or gore, this is about what it is like to become the enslaved servant of a vampire.The main male character Raymond, is the owner and operator of a wax museum preparing for a new display about Dracula and vampire in folktales, legends, and popular culture. He accepts an extra shipment of boxes and soon finds himself in the thrall of Dracula's wife, Vanessa. Played by Lenny von Dohlen, Raymond is confused, enchanted, terrified, aroused, and even giddy at various times in the movie. He clings to his humanity by clinging to love of his girlfriend, Jenny, as he struggles in pure Renfield fashion to resist his own blood lust.With so much romance about vampires in our literature and films, it was a nice change to see a truly horrific vampiric creature and her nevertheless strong hold over a main character. Too often female vampires are belittled as sexy or subordinate but Vanessa is a real monster and she holds Raymond in her hand, using mental powers on him even while she sleeps, and forcing him to witness her murderous rampages.While not the best vampire film ever, this hardly qualifies as one of the worst either. If you step back and look at Raymond in the film you may appreciate it on a new level.

When a film is titled "Dracula's Widow", and we see the title character seducing and killing a guy within the first 5 minutes, what's the point of having nearly half the running time taken up by a police investigation that can only eventually lead to what we already know from the start? Also, I thought that getting bitten by a vampire wasn't enough to make you a vampire, you also had to drink blood from the vampire that bit you. Ah, never mind, it seems that every movie in this genre is making up its own rules. Sylvia Kristel is pretty bland in a role that a better actress could have done MUCH more with, wears an awful wig, and doesn't provide any nudity either. The special effects are mostly terrible - when Kristel is in full-beast mode, she looks more like a werewolf than a vampire! The lovely Rachel Jones, as the hero's girlfriend, is one of the film's few bright spots. (*1/2)

I saw this film some years back and it scared the crap out of me. I mean this movie is a real fright of a film to watch. It flipped me out totally. The whole atmosphere of the movie is dark, wet and dreary and then along comes Dracula's Widow and then things go Red. This is a very scary film and is not well know. If you are here then i recommend picking this one up along with Salem's lot and another film called Vamp. This is really truly scary......... ............by the way all my friends have said that the most scary movie of all time is one called 'The Woman in Black' and was made for T.V in 1989. It is supposed to be totally off it's game.