Dracula(known as Horror Of Dracula in the United States) is a loose adaptation of the original novel with a bombastic attitude and brisk pace. It did everything it could to distance itself from the immensely famous 1931 film starring Bela Lugosi - this one is in color(TECHNIcolor!), and replaces the creepy and old theatrical mood with pristine vibrancy.
This has mixed results - I appreciate the desire to do something different and memorable in its own right, but the novel is incredibly cinematic and it might've been better to adapt it more closely, or at least the section of it centered around the castle.
Instead of the disgusting, devious Count of the book, Lee brings an immense aristocratic authority and monstrous energy to the part. He looks like he could rip anything in his way to shreds and creates his own kind of menace with that. However, he unfortunately lacks much dialogue(in fact, following the first act with Jonathan Harker, Dracula does not speak a single word in this film), which leaves him more of a mad dog to be put down than an intellectual threat.
Lee is counterbalanced by Peter Cushing, an equally brilliant actor who portrays Dracula's arch-nemesis Van Helsing with superb conviction. It's an iconic pairing and their final battle in the castle is the stuff of horror legend.
All in all, it's an entertaining retelling of a classic, but not particularly scary by modern standards.
Christopher Lee had no interest in becoming a horror icon and passed on the Dracula sequel. However, Peter Cushing was more of a good sport and so we have Brides Of Dracula. Don't let the title fool you. It's not about brides and it's certainly not about Dracula.
Instead, this sequel features the character of Van Helsing using his expertise and cunning to battle a whole new vampire by the name of Baron Meinster, played by David Peel. He's no Lee, but not a terrible antagonist either. His presence adds variety. Cushing shines in his expanded role, most notably in a glorious scene where he burns the vampire's bite off of his neck with a hot poker and holy water.
Like the original, Brides is directed by Terence Fisher and retains the flamboyant production design and sheer effort that went into that film. It's not one to skip.
Six years later, through some dark magic, Hammer convinced Christopher Lee to reprise the part. However, his co-star Cushing was now busy leading his own Frankenstein horror series, so the role of vampire hunter is taken over by Andrew Keir's boisterous Father Sandor, who is a brilliant character in his own right, and so popular in fact, that he got a comic book spin-off fighting all sorts of demons.
Infamously, Lee does not speak a single word in the film, later claiming that the script was so terrible that he simply rejected the dialogue. Screenwriter Jimmy Sangster contested this by saying he just never wrote anything(and indeed, Dracula spoke little in the first film as well). Personally speaking, I don't think Lee was a liar.
The plot is very simple - a group of travellers end up in Dracula's castle via subtly supernatural means and are met by Dracula's manservant(Philip Latham), who invites them in and then takes advantage of them to resurrect his master. And then the rest try to kill Dracula again.
It's a very patient film that builds up a considerable amount of suspense to Dracula's return. We know the heroes are practically doomed the moment they go on the wrong path and it's nailbiting to see them make all the wrong choices, because they are a fairly likable bunch.
The production is still spectacular - Dracula's castle is more opulent and inviting than ever before, and the resurrection looks quite awesome even to this day. I particularly love the touch of Dracula's hand(Lee's hand was slightly distorted due to an injury in a swordfight) emerging from the tomb like some horrific spider.
I would say this is my favourite of the series - it's by far the most atmospheric and character-driven.
Dracula Has Risen From The Grave sees the Count resurrected by accident when a pair of priests(played by Rupert Davies and Ewan Hooper) go up to purify his castle of evil. One of them slips and bleeds directly into a frozen lake, where the Count just happens to reside in following the events of Dracula: Prince Of Darkness.
So Dracula wakes up only to find his nice, cozy home has a great big cross on it and gets *pissed*, swearing revenge on the monsignor responsible and has the other, more weak-willed priest take his coffin to a new base of operations... the cellar of a bakery store.
Yeah, that's all credibility gone out of the window right there. I will never take Dracula seriously when he's trying to kill someone like a slasher villain, lurking in a store cellar. Do you think he gets free pretzels?
The one interesting aspect of this film is that the monsignor's young ward(Hammer's most famous buxom babe Veronica Carlson) is in love with a good-hearted gentleman(Barry Andrews) who just happens to be an atheist. So when he takes over the protagonist role, he finds himself uniquely vulnerable to the demonic force of Dracula, because one HAS to pray and believe to take the Count down. I think that's quite a clever idea, even if it does make this an explicitly religious film.
Dracula talks again, but he still has nothing of any significance to say. "Now my revenge... is complete!" What is he, a Sith Lord?
This would be around the time when Christopher Lee wanted to quit again, believing that Hammer was wasting the Dracula character. However, the producers had already sold several films with Lee's name on them to the United States and Lee, to his horror, was told that he'd be putting a great number of people out of work if he retired, thus obligating him to participate in several more flicks. At least the fury helped him play the part?
Dracula Has Risen From The Grave was directed by Freddie Francis, who was the cinematographer on the previous parts. He isn't quite as talented as Fisher, but has a knack for great, colourful visuals, which helps to retain the audience's attention when the material is as drab as this.
In Taste The Blood Of Dracula, we follow a trio of aging hedonists(one played by James Bond's Geoffrey Keen), who are looking for the ultimate hit. They run into Ralph Bates's charismatic Lord Courtley, who suggests they spend the evening resurrecting Count Dracula. Hell, why not?
The ritual goes terribly wrong when the hedonists become too scared to drink Dracula's blood, so poor Courtley has to do it himself, only to choke on it. Panicking, the hedonists beat the guy to death and flee the scene, unaware that the ritual was still completed successfully. The corpse of Courtley dissolves away, leaving behind the Count, who swears vengeance on the trio for killing his stooge.
Another story of revenge? Sigh. I don't know why Dracula takes it so personally. I mean, his castle, sure, but some random cultist? I guess Dracula hates it whenever you touch *anything* he owns, but if that's the case, you'd think he'd be hunting down literally every survivor from the previous films.
At least this time, Dracula has a better base - a church converted for Black Mass. Although why he doesn't just use his castle, I have no clue. It doesn't matter, the film sucks anyway. It's the first to really lack any visual splendour or interesting characters(except for Courtley in the first act), and plays like a tired slasher flick. Unintentionally, the funniest thing is Dracula's dialogue - he counts off every victim, so every time someone dies, you get Christopher Lee leering into the camera and drawling: "The first..." "The second..." etc. It's so stupid it's funny.
I think my only real positive is that there's a neat special effect where every time someone points a cross in Dracula's direction, it shines brilliantly like a sun, covering the Count with its shadow. It's a cool addition and the only thing I really remembered about this film.
Hammer sought to reinvent its monsters with reboots, and that included one for Dracula. Fortunately, Christopher Lee was seen as too valuable to recast, so we still have him. This new take on the series starts off with Dracula being resurrected after the events of the last film-wait, what?
Okay, maybe it's a *spiritual* reawakening. Anyway, a random fake bat shows up, floats in place and spits blood on the Count's remains, and that immediately brings him back. Wonderful.
Scars Of Dracula(released the same year as the previous film, by the way - money, money, money...) is not a particularly original film. Once again, people happen to stumble on the Count's castle, now looking less impressive thanks to the villagers ransacking it in the prologue(read: lower budget). There, they are met by Dracula's manservant-wait, what?
Yeah, it's literally the same dude as in Dracula: Prince Of Darkness. Played by a different actor(Doctor Who's Patrick Troughton) and having a completely new personality, but somehow, he's alive again. So I guess this is a reboot? Eh, who cares?
They wander into the Count's home, upset him and become adamant to take him down once again with the help of the villagers. It's done nowhere near as well as in previous films(this one has a particularly grey and dull look about it, and the realistic gore is ramped up to tasteless proportions), but at least it feels like a Dracula story again. Christopher Lee finally gets a good deal of dialogue to deliver and is excellent as always.
It's a pretty terrible film, but at least they relied on what's tried and true. Okay, now brace yourselves, because the next few are gonna be something...
Dracula A.D. 1972 starts off pitch-perfect. It's Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing fighting on top of a moving coach. Yeah, Van Helsing is back! What more could you ask for? They crash and battle to the death. Afterwards, Dracula's remains are collected for safekeeping and then cut to credits... in contemporary 1970s London.
This franchise just got groovy!
I adore this movie. It's about these ridiculously camp ne'er-do-well teenagers, led by Alucard(played by Christopher Neame, a supremely underrated character actor) who want to - what else? - bring Dracula back to life.
The ham is off the scale as they hold a Black Mass in church, doing a surprisingly prescient rendition of Frozen's Let It Go song and sacrificing one of the hottest women who ever walked the planet, Bond girl Caroline Munro.
Despite its absurd premise, Dracula A.D. 1972 boasts some of the best cinematography in the series. It looks great, and amidst all these overacting fools and the neverending jazz score, Lee and Cushing give it their all to ground the film, adding class to something that should naturally be devoid of it. There is not a single Dracula film as watchable as this one. The final battle between good vs evil is almost as epic as the one they had in the original.
It shouldn't work, but it works so well.
The Satanic Rites Of Dracula is a direct sequel to Dracula A.D. 1972, carrying over several of the characters and the setting. However, it is tonally about as far removed as can be.
The police investigate a mysterious cult involving several political big noses. When one is connected to Dr Van Helsing, they call him in to investigate. Van Helsing discovers that his friend, who has become mentally unstable, is trying to recreate the bubonic plague with a 100% fatality rate, and is funded by the mysterious company owner Mr Denham, whose building resides on the grounds where Dracula died in the previous film.
Denham is of course Dracula himself, who is using the man's research to infect the four - his Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse - with the plague in a dastardly scheme to wipe out all life on the planet. It's never explicitly said why, but Van Helsing theorises that Dracula has grown tired of immortality(or more likely being killed off all the time) and wants to die and drag the world with him in his vanity.
Like the previous film, this one was written by Doctor Who's Don Houghton, but that connection really rings true with this one. It's far more a Doctor Who story than it is a Dracula film, and even the slow and methodical pacing seems to suit a four-part serial more than a movie. Even though it doesn't seem to have budget issues, the film is very talkative as if it did(and indeed, Doctor Who did).
It's a bizarre entry in the series, not scary and not really memorable either apart from its lunatic plot. Unsurprisingly, Christopher Lee bowed out from the franchise for good after this hot mess, and who can blame him? Him and Cushing are still good in the film, but they pretty much have to carry it all on their own, and their confrontation at the end pales in comparison with previous battles.
The Legend Of The 7 Golden Vampires aka "we swear this is the last one". Similarly to Brides Of Dracula 14 years ago, Christopher Lee's absence is filled by the ever-loyal Peter Cushing as Van Helsing.
Unfortunately, the film's not smart enough to put him up against a new vampire this time... or well, actually it is, but for some godforsaken reason, Dracula is also in this film for like five minutes, played by what's essentially a cosplayer dressed up as Christopher Lee. It's embarrassing and completely irrelevant to the plot.
The rest of the time, Van Helsing(the original again, not the 70s one) battles Chinese vampires. I say battles, but since this was also a crossover with Shaw Brothers Studio, it is a martial arts film and obviously, Peter Cushing can't do that. So it's more like "Van Helsing watches the Chinese fight Chinese vampires".
Still, I really like the change of locale and they clearly put effort into depicting a different kind of vampire mythology. The sequence of them hunting a poor farmer with a zombie army is very impressive and striking in a ghoulish way. If I'm being honest, maybe this should've just been a Van Helsing series where Dracula occasionally pops in for old times' sake.
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