Dracula - Prince Of Darkness (DVD)

...what happened in the last Dracula film with Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) destroying Dracula by forcing him to enter daylight where he crumbles into dust.

It is ten years later, in Transylvania and the body of a young girl is being carried out into the forest by a sombre group who all look like English puritans and all with English accents. They’re going to stake her through the heart as they believe she has been bitten a vampire. A distraught ...
...in a ritual sacrifice brings Dracula back to life with the blood of Alan.

And the proverbial hits the fan and about time, it took forever for Dracula to arrive in this film.

==What I Thought==

I at first intended on reviewing all the Dracula films in this Christopher Lee series, however, I couldn’t find the first one but this film can stand on it’s own. All you really need to know is that Dracula is a vampire ... more

After a brilliant opening with red, gothic-font credits over Count Dracula’s castle we are given a quick re-cap of what happened in the last Dracula film with Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) destroying Dracula by forcing him to enter daylight where he crumbles into dust.

It is ten years later, in Transylvania and the body of a young girl is being carried out into the forest by a sombre group who all look like English puritans and all with English accents. They’re going to stake her through the heart as they believe she has been bitten a vampire. A distraught mother doesn’t want them to do it and before they can Father Sandor the super cranky priest arrives on the scene and berates them for their superstition and takes the girl away to be buried decently.

Four English travellers are in local pub, they are two brothers and their wives. Chris is enjoying a yard of ale with the locals whilst Helen, his sister-in-law, whinges about his generosity. Father Sandor then arrives in the pub shouting at people and tearing down their garlic for being superstitious and then casually warms his ass at the fire. He learns of the travellers plan to go to a certain mountain for a climb. Sandor warns them against it, the castle is dangerous he says and advices them go to visit his monastery instead (who’s being superstitious now?).

They see no castle on the map and think the priest a little eccentric so they go ahead with their plans. However, their coach driver won’t take them near the castle, yet refuses to admit it exists and abandons them in the middle of no-where and just as they’re about to stay in little wooden shack an unmanned coach mysteriously appears. They decide to use it but the horses won’t go where they’re told and take the travellers straight to Castle Dracula.

It is inhabited by a man-servant called Klove who is carrying out his masters last wishes in keeping the castle always ready for guests. After a boring bit of Helen whinging a lot more and Alan and his wife talking about nothing of real consequence Klove in a ritual sacrifice brings Dracula back to life with the blood of Alan.

And the proverbial hits the fan and about time, it took forever for Dracula to arrive in this film.

What I Thought

I at first intended on reviewing all the Dracula films in this Christopher Lee series, however, I couldn’t find the first one but this film can stand on it’s own. All you really need to know is that Dracula is a vampire and Van Helsing vanquished him into a pile of dust. The previous Dracula film being loosely similar to the book. The little re-cap tells you enough.

The film had a nice idea for a story, Dracula’s resurrection was gory, with quite good special effects and an original idea that really worked, the weird blood-bath woman in Hostel 2 clearly took her inspiration from here . Christopher Lee was back as Dracula and he is very much the archetypical Dracula.

However, Dracula in this film does occasionally go from looking quite sinister (note the scene where he’s standing at the top of the stairs in the house with all the red light - my laptop won‘t play the disc for some reason so no pics) to just a bit stupid with that constant stupid teeth bearing expression. Dracula is silent the entire film and this is rumoured to be because Lee refused to read the terrible dialogue given him. I think it does lose a certain something with a silent Dracula. He’s not the same suave character and though that rumour is subject to some debate, I think it may well be true because if you had Christopher Lee in your film would you fail to take advantage of that fantastic voice?

What makes the rumour all the more believable is the fact that the dialogue in this film is terrible and so, so boring at times. Helen was the epitome of this, the woman just never shut up about nothing. I could not care less about one thing she said and there were so many times where she would just go on and on talking about being afraid. Played by Barbara Shelley, who acted a few other Hammer Horror films it’s such a relief when she becomes a vampire and the actress starts to become a bit more bearable, mainly because she keeps her mouth shut.

Alan is obviously going to go first and anyone could tell this by the precious little screen time he gets and Chris’s wife Diana (Suzan Farmer) too, is pretty characterless. Chris on the other hand is the hero of sorts along with Father Sandor, our Van Helsing for this film as Peter Cushing didn’t return to play the man himself. I didn’t understand Sandor at all, the man spends the vast majority of the beginning of the film refuting the existence of vampires and making fun of, and criticising all those who believe in them but then it turns out he’s the authority on the matter. What’s that about?

This film did make up for a lot of these flaws simply by the look of it. The costumes and the scenery and the castle are all picture-perfect and probably where most the money went. I loved the look of Castle Dracula (although it’s clearly a different castle from the last film) and the scene where Dracula with his cape fluttering behind him marches through the court yard was almost arousing. It had a decent enough story to lead on from Dracula. Terence Fisher, a director with pretty much nothing but horror films under his belt did make a decent, watchable film out of the script. It was possibly more adventurous than horrific and we can thank the BBFC for this who had the film cut to their dull specifications. The horror would seem relatively mild by today’s standards. The censors were so strict in those days that even the line “Pleasure in this life is important, there is little enough of it in the hereafter” had to be changed. The film I think, also lacks atmosphere that, there were too many daytime scenes and even the castle seemed too bright but as the film went on it got darker. Only problem is it took too long for this too happen and too long for Dracula to come about. Similarly the music was more something that would go with a perilous climb up a cliff than a gothic horror.

DVD

The DVD had an hour long documentary called The Changing Faces of Christopher Lee which involves Christopher Lee sitting in his living room talking about himself and his films. He seems to have a prop from each one he talks about and has a story to tell about each. He confirms that in Prince of Darkness he refused to talk because the lines were terrible and also shows us some behind the scenes footage taken during the making of that film. He also gives us a demonstration of sword fighting when talking about the musketeer films and how to draw a gun when talking about his westerns. He even still has a piece of the actual wickerman from The Wickerman . It’s a very good documentary with lots of information about Lee and lots of entertaining stories. It is pretty much the highlights from his book Lord of Misrule but with footage from the films.

My DVD came with the Hammer Horror box-set of 21 Hammer Horror films, which I got for £25 new

Overall

To it’s detriment the film had boring dialogue, not enough Dracula and censored horror as well as a relative lack of atmosphere. In it’s favour the film had Lee as Dracula, a respectable follow-on story and great scenery as well as complying with all the usual vampire requirements with the garlic, the running water, the inviting etc and it even had a character, Ludwig, who was pretty much Renfield (except camper). Add to this the unique character that Hammer productions, Terence Fisher and Christopher Lee manage to bring to the film it manages to be quite good. It has it’s flaws and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone but Christopher Lee and Hammer horror fans but I enjoyed it. It’s not the best in the series and the previous two films are superior but it’s not a massive let down either and done quite well at the box office in 1966. It’s more and adventure film than a horror film and I think that’s worth bearing in mind.

Of Importance

Helen was a boring, whiney b***h.
Ludwig is Renfield’s gayer counterpart.
Sandor emphatically doesn’t believe in vampires one scene and then he does the next.
Do you pronounce the ‘T’ in claret? Sandor does, every time, with emphasis.
The Romanians around Castle Dracula all speak excellent English with accents like natives.
Sandor likes to complain about filthy weather on sunny days.
If you don’t talk a lot you’re going to die first.
Christopher Lee kicks ass.

Who I’d Punch

I’d punch Helen and after I punched her unconscious, I’d admit to everyone else that she was probably right but she didn’t have to go on and on and on and on about it. Then kick while she was down.

Trailer

http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi2963472665/

Pretty good trailer too.

Also if you want to see Christopher Lee, kick the sh*t out of a door check 1.51 here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BecT8EwZ9ag

(Expect a review of the next film Dracula Has Risen from the Grave soon)

Written by Phelim McC. Don’t steal it, it’s got cooties (whatever the hell they are) 

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