Dracula (1958)

Dracula is a British horror film first released in 1958, directed by Terence Fisher.  The film stars Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Michael Gough, Melissa Stribling and Carol Marsh.  It has also been released under the title: Dracula 1958.  Our overall rating for this film is: very good.


Jonathan Harker makes the journey to Klausenberg to take up the post of librarian at Castle Dracula.  The real motive for his expedition is to kill his employer, Count Dracula, but before he can do this he is attacked by a mysterious woman in white.  The next day, Harker discovers that he has been bitten on his neck and realises that he is destined to become a vampire.  With no time to lose, he locates the coffins containing Dracula and his sinister bride.  Although he manages to dispatch the latter, by driving a wooden stake through her heart, Harker fails to destroy Dracula before he awakes.  A few weeks later, Dr Van Helsing travels to Klausenberg in search of his missing friend.  Van Helsing finds Harker’s body in the crypt of Castle Dracula, but there is no trace of the evil Count.  Harker’s fiancé Lucy Holmwood and her brother Arthur are shocked when Van Helsing breaks the news of his death to them, but far worse is to come.  To avenge the death of his bride, Dracula intends to claim Lucy for himself and begins paying her nocturnal visits.  Despite Van Helsing’s best efforts, Lucy becomes one of the undead, but the vampire hunter manages to destroy her before she can spread the plague of vampirism.   A far greater challenge remains, however – to find Dracula and bring an end to his vile reign of tyranny...

The first in Hammer’s series of seven Dracula films is easily one of the best, an atmospheric piece that surpasses even the classic Universal 1931 Bela Lugosi version in its creepiness and sustained aura of menace from beyond the grave.  After their successful pairing in Hammer’s previous The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing are brought together for a second time, to form one of cinema’s most enduring iconic pairings, as Dracula and his nemesis Van Helsing.  This is the film that made Lee an international star, although the actor soon grew tired of his association with the role of the vampiric count and it would be almost a decade before he would next don the familiar fangs and cape, in Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966).

Whilst it may not follow Bram Stoker’s original novel to the letter, this film captures the essence of the novel more successfully than any screen adaptation before or since.  Screenwriter Jimmy Sangster effectively compresses Stoker’s sprawling first-person narrative into a taut, fast moving good-versus-evil morality tale that has no time for the kind of silliness and Grand Guignol excesses that would slip into Hammer’s later Dracula films.

It is hard to imagine any pair of actors better suited for the roles of Dr Van Helsing and Count Dracula than Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee.   Who could play the dedicated vampire hunter as realistically and with as much moral authority as Peter Cushing?  And surely no one could surpass Christopher Lee as the demonic Count, a character that is barely contained by the screen, such is the charisma and vitality that resonate from the six foot five actor.  Lee’s Dracula may be the embodiment of pure evil but there is also a suggestion of pathos, an impression that the vampire is more victim than villain - something that is more noticeable in Hammer’s subsequent Dracula films.

Terence Fisher’s direction is slick, meticulous and tirelessly inventive, making the most of the film’s low budget and weaving a Gothic nightmare that is chilling in its realism and unremitting graveyard aura.   Much of the credit for the film’s striking Gothic look goes to art director Bernard Robinson, who achieved design miracles with next to no money.  Here Hammer set a standard of excellence that the studio would struggle to match in subsequent years.  It is one of the few British horror films of this period that still manages to send a shiver down the spine and makes you peep warily into the wardrobe before you go to bed.  This is a rare thing indeed: a Gothic horror film with teeth.

© filmsdefrance.com 2009

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