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Review
by
Brian Lindsey
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8
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5 |
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10
= Highest Rating |
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Britain's
Hammer Studios was the first to bring Count Dracula
to the screen in living, blood-red color. Reteaming
Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, the stars of
Hammer's 1957 hit Curse
of Frankenstein, director Terence Fisher created
what is arguably the best Dracula film out of the
legion that have been made in the past 70 years.
Lee, as had Bela Lugosi almost three decades before,
fashioned a horror icon from Stoker's vampire for
a whole new generation of international movie audiences.
While Horror of Dracula
is seminal in the character's film canon, it's hardly
faithful to the literary source. Only a bare outline
of the original novel serves as the basis for Jimmy
Sangster's economical script. Most of the characters
have been jettisoned, notably Renfield, and the
entire story takes place in Eastern Europe rather
than shifting the main action to England. No sea
voyage for Drac here, no lunatic asylum. Vampire
hunter Van Helsing (Cushing) is nothing at all like
the character in the book. Rather than an eccentric,
thickly-accented Dutchman, Cushing plays the character
as a younger man of action, quick-thinking and resolute,
more scientist than mystic. Even with Lee's charismatic
turn as Dracula, it is Cushing one of the finest,
most underrated actors in English language cinema
who carries the film with his intelligent, energetic
portrayal of the Count's great nemesis.
As
in the novel, the story begins with Jonathan Harker
(John Van Eyssen) traveling to Castle Dracula in
Transylvania. In the book and most film adaptations
Harker
is an English lawyer whose client, a certain Transylvanian
nobleman, is purchasing real estate in England.
He has no idea what lies in store for him at the
castle. Here, Harker is a dedicated vampire hunter
working under the tutelage of Van Helsing, fully
aware of Dracula's true nature. He's secured the
post of castle librarian in order to locate Dracula's
resting place and destroy him. Things don't go as
planned, of course. Harker slays one of Dracula's
vampire women (Valerie Gaunt) but he himself falls
victim to the Count.
Enter Van Helsing, who's just a little late
in aiding his colleague. He finds the vampirized
Harker lying in Dracula's crypt, where he destroys
him. But the quarry has flown the coop Van Helsing
is almost run down by a hearse tearing out of the
castle gate. With Harker's journal, which details
the failure of his mission and ultimate fate, Van
Helsing travels to Klausenberg to break the news
to Harker's fiancιe Lucy (Carol Marsh) and her family,
the Holmwoods. (Just what this English clan is doing
living in Transylvania is never explained.) Wishing
to spare them the more fantastical details, the
vampire hunter is greeted with hostility and suspicion
by Lucy's brother, Arthur Holmwood (Michael Gough),
when he refuses to discuss the nature of Jonathan's
death. Later, Arthur's wife Mina (Melissa Stribling),
who respects his friendship with Jonathan and reputation
as a physician, seeks Van Helsing out for a second
opinion on a strange anemia that has befallen Lucy,
leaving her bedridden. The vampire hunter immediately
suspects the worst... Has Dracula come to Klausenberg
to claim Lucy as his next bride in darkness?
Hammer detractors often chide the studio's films
for their leisurely narrative. Horror
of Dracula, clocking in at a compact 82 minutes,
is briskly at times even breathlessly paced,
especially when compared to the slow-as-molasses
1931 Lugosi version. The caliber of acting, handsome
set design and marvelous use of color belie the
movie's relatively low budget. Because of budgetary
constraints, in fact, many classic elements of the
Dracula story had to be dropped; the real reason
the Count never turns into a mist or a bat in this
version is because it was simply cheaper for him
not to have these powers. (The script has Van Helsing
dismissing such transmogrifications as a "common
fallacy" about vampires.) Interestingly enough,
it's because this Dracula cannot shapeshift that
he comes across more as a terrifying, flesh-and-blood
monster to be grappled with at close quarters
only at great peril to the hunters than some ethereal,
blood-drinking ghost in formal wear. The two moments
that stand out in this regard are the confrontation
at the castle, wherein the Count is first revealed
as the undead creature he truly is, and the exciting
battle between Van Helsing and Dracula at the climax.
(The latter was used as a pre-titles sequence for
1966's Dracula
Prince of Darkness.) Any "monster kid" who
grew up watching horror movies on TV in the '60s
and '70s has these sequences emblazoned in their
memory forever. It's primarily due to them that
for many, (including me) the name "Dracula" immediately
evokes an image of a feral, snarling Christopher
Lee not Bela Lugosi in a tux.
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Well,
what d'ya know! Warner has finally
finally!
released this classic horror film on DVD, much to
my surprise and delight. The specter of hope was first
raised when the company issued Hammer's 1959 version
of The Mummy on disc in
2001, but this fact was tempered with the knowledge
that it was only released to cash in on Universal's
The Mummy Returns hitting
video shelves. Apparently it sold well, so Warner
decided to follow up with the two Hammer horrors that
started it all, Curse of Frankenstein
and this one. I know I'm not alone when I say, "It's
about damned time!" As I consider it a minor miracle
that this even happened, I'm not going to bitch (not
too much, anyway) about the final product.
The transfer used for the DVD looks stunning in
comparison to my well-worn VHS copy. Colors are wonderfully
vibrant; there are practically no blemishes to speak
of. Presented in anamorphic letterbox format, the
matting ratio used is definitely too tight... The
(very) top of Christopher Lee's head is indeed cropped
off in a couple of scenes. This has generated much
furor on the Internet among Hammer fans. Personally
I'm not bothered by it too much, as the widescreen
format opens up quite a bit of visual information
on the sides of the screen that I've never before
seen... In regards to audio, the disc's mono track
is crisp and clear, correcting the uneven mix used
for the VHS version. On my tape the opening music
was incredibly loud, then suddenly dropped in volume
about 15 seconds into the credits
this occurred on every videotape of the movie I've
ever viewed. Certainly the film has never sounded
this good before.
Being
a bargain-priced Warner disc, extras are almost nonexistent.
It's great to see the original trailer in surprisingly
good shape, though the different aspect ratio used
will no doubt lead to instant comparisons with that
of the film's. (You can see the top of Lee's head
in the trailer but less visual area on the sides.)
There's also a lame step-through text article about
the Hammer Drac films entitled Dracula Lives Again!,
but as it consists of only a few paragraphs (and contains
incorrect data to boot) it's totally without value.
I must extend praise to Warner for the selection of
the marvelous, old-fashioned cover art gracing the
packaging, however. Inexplicably, though, on the back
of the snapper case is a photo of Stephanie Beacham
in a scene from Dracula
A.D. 1972. This is just plain sloppy! Yet
even with these faults in the presentation, Warner's
Horror of Dracula DVD
is a disc that no self-respecting vampire fan should
be without.
10/04/02 |
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