Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966) - film review

Englishman Charles Kent persuades his brother Alan and their two wives, Helen and Diana, to make a tour of the Carpathian mountains.   When they arrive in the area they find the locals strangely fearful and are warned by a priest, Father Sandor, not to continue with their exploration of the mountains.  When their coach driver refuses to take them on to the next stop on their itinerary, the two couples find themselves stranded at the entrance to an old castle.  Entering the castle, they find it deserted, and yet the dinner table is set for four.  An unkempt butler named Klove appears and serves them dinner, explaining that he is fulfilling the wishes of his former master, the late Count Dracula.  Unbeknown to the four tourists, Dracula was a vampire, a blood sucking fiend who, it is believed, was destroyed ten years ago.  Klove has preserved his master’s ashes and knows that all he needs to bring the Count back to life is to soak them in blood – human blood...

A fang-baring Christopher Lee makes a triumphant return as the dentally endowed prince of horror in this spine-tingling chiller – a classic of its kind from Hammer Film Productions, the British company that breathed new life (and several hundred lorry-loads of theatrical blood) into the old-fashioned horror genre.  Lee made the part his own when he starred in Hammer’s earlier film Dracula (1958), in which he was pitted against the equally iconic Peter Cushing, a match that would be replayed many, many times in Lee’s subsequent blood-stained career.  Although the actor would soon regret becoming so closely associated with one character, no would deny that he is the definitive Count Dracula – surpassing even Bela Lugosi in screen presence, elegance and blood-curdling creepiness.

Dracula: Prince of Darkness is an enjoyable fantasy horror romp but it doesn’t quite match up to the earlier Dracula (which is referenced in the film’s prologue).  The combined talent of Andrew Keir and Francis Matthews is no substitute for Peter Cushing and the plot is at times so formulaic and predictable that it feels like the output of a computer program.  Another disappointment is that Dracula is silent throughout the film – the story is that Christopher Lee felt the dialogue was so awful that he refused to say his lines - and this robs the monster of some of his power and humanity.

Of course, the film makes up for its failings in other ways – most evidently in its gloriously over-the-top set pieces, which exemplify Hammer’s attempt to revive the art of the Grand Guignol.  The highpoint is the sequence in which the vampiric prince is reanimated by the blood of one of his hapless victims, which manages to be both spell-bindingly stylish and viscerally horrifying.  Another masterstroke is the way in which the Count is dispatched at the end of the film, which does the deed without the tried and tested methods involving crucifixes, sunlight and wooden stakes.  It may not be perfect, the script may be a bit ropey in places, the pace uneven, but this spirited venture into Gothic horror, British-style, has plenty to chill the marrow and pep up your nightmares.

© Alex Sullivan 2009

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