petrelet This is really not a very good movie.It is nowhere near the quality of the 1931 film and at times it is so confused that it approaches Ed Wood levels; and Wood's characters were seldom as lacking in energy and intention as the characters here.The one thing I will give it credit for is the frank sexual aspect that it gives to the vampiric relationship between Christopher Lee's Dracula and his female victims, and I have given it an extra star or two on that account. Although that makes the movie pretty much a celebration of rape fantasies: the tall virile man dominates his prey! The woman is ashamed and fearful, but she thinks only of his coming to her bed! etc.In order to claim that this movie is of higher quality than I've indicated, some process other than normal evaluation must be in play. Perhaps one feels that because this movie played an important part in the history of the Hammer studio and its Dracula franchise, it deserves to be uprated just because of its historical significance? I don't think that's how it works.The story is nowhere near as well thought out as the Abbott and Costello monster movies always were. I will rant about geography for a few sentences just to make my point. The Stoker novel begins in Transylvania; the Count voyages to London; then it ends up in Transylvania again. This is a lot of unnecessary traveling, so the 1931 movie (based on an earlier play) starts in Transylvania and then just has all of the conflict take place in London.The Hammer film decides to save on travel even more, by putting all the action into a sort of tiny space-warped Europe-themed park, at one end of which is Klausenburg (the capital of Transylvania) and at the other of which is Karlstadt, a German city populated by English people, which is 800 miles from Transylvania on the map of Europe but only about 20 miles away in this movie, a brief carriage ride away. You may think this is a picky point, but my real point is that any middle-school student would come up with a geographical approach that made more sense. The middle-school screenwriter would also have more of a sense of the do's and don'ts of vampire-hunting: for example, when you have only a few minutes before sunset to go and kill vampires, don't waste time writing about it in your miserable journal! (In fact it seems that Harker could have just dispatched Dracula in the first minute of this movie if he had had any gumption.)The middle-school screenwriter might think that the male characters should devote more attention to actually preventing the female ones from being killed and converted to vampires, and to care more if they fail in it. But I can't blame that entirely on the screenplay; the blame for the characters' languid attitude has to be shared by the actors and director as well.Much of the vampire-chasing action involves Dracula running out of rooms in order to come back in and make an entrance, taking no thought for the time of day or presence of windows (why does he even have windows in his castle, why hasn't he boarded them up in 600 years). Meanwhile his opponents act as if crucifixes and garlic cost their weight in diamonds, and decline to deploy them as they should. I could go on in this regard, but it isn't worth it.

John austin Classic vampire stories were out of style for most of the '50s until Hammer Studios took up this full color retelling of Stoker's Dracula.Christopher Lee plays Dracula with the usual aristocratic air, but also with a dose of viciousness and even a little desperation that nobody had really seen before. Seeing it again recently, I'm surprised by just how few lines Lee has in this. The show really belongs to Peter Cushing as the single minded Van Helsing.Some divergences are taken from the original story, but that's usually the case, and they treat this story with the proper amount of reverence. The plot moves quickly, almost like the original story had to be compressed to work here. I like the way color works in this, although some could argue that it detracts just a little from the Gothic atmosphere they were able to establish in earlier versions. The principal players in this are quite stodgy and British even though it appears that all the action in this film takes place on the European continent. I recall that other Hammer films were also uncertain about exactly where they were taking place, i.e., characters wearing German helmets but talking with a British accent. I wonder if that was done on purpose for some reason.The passage of time definitely places this one up there with the greats of the genre and should be seen by anyone who claims to be a fan of vampire cinema.

Connor Martin The first of the Hammer Dracula films, Horror of Dracula stars Peter Cusing and Christoper Lee as Van Helsing and Dracula. The film is an interesting take on the Dracula story, which, even by 1958, had been done to death. The film does some interesting things with the story while remaining true to the source material. Cusing and Lee are amazing in this film. Every time Cusing is on screen, you can't help but watch. He is just so captivating. Lee also plays probably the scariest Dracula since Max Sheirck in Nosferatu. The film is surprisingly entertaining, with Cusing proving himself to be the first real horror hero. The film is a massive influence on horror today and has a lasting impact that not a lot of horror films from the era have.

framptonhollis I've been meaning to watch this film for quite some time, and after Christopher Lee's tragic death, I knew that I had to finally sit down and watch it this October. And, so, today I did watch it, and it was pretty great.In fact, one of my biggest complaints about the film was how little Christopher Lee was actually in the movie. Whenever he's there, its just absolute horror cinema magic. But that isn't to say that when he isn't there the movie is bad or uninteresting. It stays pretty interesting throughout, but, because so much is going on in the movie, it does feel a bit longer than 80 minutes.Another complaint I have is the absence of Renfield. Renfield is usually the best character in a Dracula movie, besides Dracula! In both the Bela Lugosi version and the Werner Herzog film "Nosferatu, the Vampyre", Renfield is a very comic, fun, and, overall, amazing character!But, thats really all of the complaints I have for this one, because, its actually a really awesome movie! And, for the 50s, its pretty hardcore. Of course it is tame now, but for the 50s there's quite a bit of violence and even a bit of blood!The performance by Peter Cushing, playing Van Helsing, is pretty good to, and it is always cool to see Peter Chushing in a film other than the original "Star Wars".Overall, if you're a big fan of classic horror, you've probably already have seen this, and, if you haven't, you really should!