Director: Roy Ward Baker
Year: 1970
Country: United Kingdom
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Vampire
Plot:
Trying to locate their friend, a couple venturing through the countryside after him find that the evidence leads to a strange lord's castle on the hillside, where they find the remains of the vampire Dracula and must find a way of stopping the evil being from causing more harm.
Review:
This here was quite a fun and enjoyable effort. One of the better elements here is that the film displays the very first signs of the company's evolution within the time period, as the shift towards more sex and violence surprisingly fits the movie well. It allows for something most Hammer films don't do in managing to include their usual Gothic trappings with some additional gore and sleaze that come about here. The film's Gothic sensibilities are on display quite early here, not only because it takes place at the castle itself, which is the usually grand and ornate location featured in such affairs, including the usual grand hallways, twisting hallways, and secret passageways with large drapes and candelabras lighting the way, which makes the sections of them staying at the castle quite fun.
Likewise, the action quotient here is also enjoyable with the burning castle set piece in the beginning of the film is a nice scene to look at, as we see its long, elegant clock towers going up in flames as the central body burns brightly is impressive to view, the scenes of them wandering through the countryside trying to find a way to escape is quite nice while there's some nice work of him targeting the villagers who go up to help them. This ends up providing the film with a body count as his seduction of many of them provides this with some rather enjoyable scenes, as well as providing the lead-in for the finale, which is so much fun with the resurrection in the coffin and finally detailing the series of chases and battles on the castle's fortress which make for quite a thrilling and truly rousing finish. Alongside an extremely creative and unique way that Dracula gets resurrected in this, there's a lot to really like here with this one.
There are only a few issues here to contend with. The middle of the film could be seen as a weak point of the movie, as nothing of real significance happens. It does tend to drag out a bit here with the traditional Hammer scenes, from the overlong set-up to get him out to the castle to disappear for their later search to occur and the later parts of them wandering the countryside, stopping at the end where it takes forever for something to finish out. That seems to be the real beef with the film, as too often they have scenes that seem to carry on forever that do absolutely nothing to get the plot going. Also, the scene where Dracula is seen scaling a wall by crawling up it was one of the most laughably bad scenes ever. It looks so ridiculous and silly that I can't believe it was even allowed into the final version of the film, as it's just such a weak effect. Still, the pace here is the biggest issue.
Overview: ****/5
A highly underrated effort in the series, there's a lot more going on in this one than expected and helps to make for a generally fun time here against a few minor drawbacks featured here. Those with an appreciation for this era of the genre, who appreciated the other entries in the series, or who are fans of the creative crew will have a lot to like, while most others out there should heed caution.
Comments
Post a Comment