Director: Brian Clemens
Year: 1974
Country: United Kingdom
Alternate Titles: Vampire Castle
Genre: Vampire
Plot:
Heading through the countryside, a vampire hunter and his servant find a young woman left behind by the local villagers and take her along with them where they find the area is being haunted by a series of vampire attacks that becomes far more intense and pointed at them forcing them into action to stop them.
Review:
This is a wholly underwhelming enough effort. Among the few bright spots here is the sterling Gothic atmosphere that is usually prevalent in their films coming into play here. The English countryside and remote village where the action takes place are perfectly utilized here, as the woodland scenes of the vampire stalking the various girls in the village provide numerous fantastic imagery that feels very olde-world creepy and chilling. Likewise, the castle finale where it takes place is a suitably rustic and expansive setting that looks straight out of their classic-era efforts. Throwing in a swordfight for the major action battle is quite unique and manages to generate a different atmosphere for the finale, and with the fine make-up work on the dead bodies offers up the film’s positives.
There are a few problems to be had here. The main factor holding this one back is the rather unappealing and bland vampire hunter that we’re supposed to follow along who is nowhere near the sympathetic type that’s worthy of being followed. The depiction of a brash man of action who rushes into everything with slack-jawed determination and steely-resolve makes him instead be condescending and arrogant to a point that doesn’t engender audience sympathy when he gets to be in danger. A loner who treats his support staff with disdain when he doesn’t require their assistance doesn’t strike any kind of imposing physical threat that would make the vampires fear him in any manner which further reduces the effectiveness of him in the lead role.
As well, the other issue here is the decided lack of action that doesn’t have much energy going for it. All we get are brief flurries of attacks that barely constitute vampire action for the first hour of the film, and these aren’t all that impressive at all making their inclusion not only unnecessary but seemingly an afterthought at the expense of his struggles through the countryside village. There’s nothing on-display as for how the vampire plague threatens the area since they’re hardly on-screen to generate that kind of impact and the lack of information as to their purpose or why them draining victims turn them into accelerated-aged victims that has very little to do with traditional vampirism. All told, these here really lower this one significantly.
Overview: */5
While it does have a few minor enjoyable elements, the fact that there are way too many problems elsewhere throughout the film which overrides the positives keeps this one quite low overall. This is really only for the most devout and hardcore Hammer horror aficionadoes or those that like Gothic-tinged genre efforts, while those who aren’t turned on the flaws should heed caution.
Comments
Post a Comment