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Review
by
Brian Lindsey
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5
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10 |
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10
= Highes Rating
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While
certainly not the best of the Hammer-produced Dracula
films, Scars of Dracula
gets the royal treatment here with Anchor Bay's
new DVD, a superlative edition befitting my favorite
Transylvanian nobleman. The initial 10,000 copies
come with a second (bonus) disc, which contains
the Lee-hosted documentary The Many Faces of
Christopher Lee as well as two music videos
(with Lee singing, no less). It's a terrific package
priced as a single disc for which Anchor Bay
should be commended. "Hammerheads" will be in gothic
nirvana.
Scars was the fifth
in the Hammer cycle to star Christopher Lee as the
title villain. A rushed, ulta-low budget follow
up to Taste the
Blood of Dracula which had opened only months
earlier it strangely chucks all pretext to continuity
with the previous films. There are further differences:
Lee's Dracula gets more screen time, while the sex
and violence quotient is decidedly pumped up. (This
was the first Hammer Dracula to earn an "R" rating
in the States.) In fact, its the most violent of
all the ones Lee headlined. Drac is a really sadistic
bastard in this one.
Though Taste the Blood
ended with Dracula being destroyed in a derelict
London church, Scars
opens in Transylvania as if those events had never
occurred. Or is this a prequel? Either way, in a
pre-titles sequence the Count is a pile of red dust
reposing in his castle's secret crypt. (As this
is shown to be a sealed chamber in the castle's
high wall, with no entrance except for a window
Drac finally got security-conscious? one wonders
just how exactly he was destroyed there.) A not
terribly convincing bat puppet flies in through
the window and drools blood on Dracula's crumbly
remains. The blood works its magic; there are some
old-fashioned smoke/process effects and DAAH
duh-duh! Lee is back as Drac and ready to attack.
As moderator Marcus Hearns points out in the audio
commentary, rather than spend a third or more of
the picture building up to Dracula's appearance,
this one "hits the ground running" right off the
mark. Local villagers get upset that Dracula has
once again put them on the menu. Brushing aside
the Count's brutish servant Klove (Patrick Troughton),
the men of the village storm the castle and set
the building alight with torches and casks of oil.
"The flames will never reach him!" Klove proclaims.
Indeed they don't. While the castle is heavily damaged
(allowing for cheaper sets), Dracula remains unscathed
to continue his reign of terror. His evil will soon
touch the lives of three young adults: the Carlson
brothers, Paul (Christopher Matthews) and Simon
(Dennis Waterman), and the girl both of them love,
Sarah (Jenny Hanley).
Paul, an oversexed libertine, has to beat feet
from Kleinenburg and environs when he's caught shagging
the Burgomeister's daughter. After getting turned
out of Michael Ripper's inn in the middle of the
night he finds his way to the front door of you
know who. Dracula, and especially his sexy companion
Tania (Anoushka Hempel), make Paul welcome at the
castle. Naturally Paul is never heard from again.
Worried, Sarah and Simon head into the countryside
to look for him; they, too, will stumble into Dracula's
deadly web.
Scars of Dracula surprised
me by coming off much better than remembered. This
is not due strictly to the wonderful restoration
job done by Anchor Bay. The fact that it deviates
from what had become standard formula for the Hammer
series while retaining a gothic setting proves
to be a big plus. Dracula himself is not just a
silent bit player making cameo appearances every
15 minutes; Lee gets more lines of dialog here than
he did in the previous three Drac flicks combined.
We get to see him scale the castle wall, spider-like,
as described in Stoker's original novel. The Count
actually commits evil acts besides biting
people, to include a savage stabbing (with an admittedly
rubbery-looking blade) and the torture by fire of
his masochistic servant. There's more gore on display
than is customary something the series needed
to liven up its well-worn suspense clichιs. (Less
sanguinary than those in modern horror flicks, I
still rate the film's gore effects a "Blood 'n'
Guts" icon, but just barely.) Eye candy is plentiful
as well, in a shapely quartet of Hammer lovelies:
Hanley's delicate (but bosomy) heroine Sarah; Hempel's
dark vampire seductress Tania (when she commands
"Love me!", one obeys!); Delta Lindsay's Alice,
the Burgomeister's randy daughter (of whose nude
backside we're given a glimpse); and Nicole Kidman
look-alike Wendy Hamilton as Julie, the slutty but
goodhearted barmaid. (Hmmm... How come these Transylvanian
chicks have English names?) The
Revenge of Frankenstein's Michael Gwynn (the
cowardly village priest) and Hammer vet Michael
Ripper lend yeoman support to the story in small
but important roles. Troughton (a former Doctor
Who) effectively mugs and growls his way through
the part of Klove, portrayed very differently here
than in Dracula
Prince of Darkness.
This was a low budget flick, even by Hammer
standards, and it shows. The numerous rubber bats
on hand are pretty laughable... even when biting
a guy's face off. Fortunately the plot has Drac's
home damaged by fire, so the small, dark, and somewhat
dingy interior sets of Castle Dracula actually lend
themselves to an atmosphere of ruin and decay. There
are some decent matte paintings used to good effect
here, particularly in the opening (nothing to compare
to those in Roger Corman's Poe films, though), yet
some of the painted backdrops are cheesy as hell.
A botched ending with Drac's scream of pain annoyingly
looped over and over doesn't help matters. It's
quite a mixed bag, really. But if you're a Hammer
fan who's previously dismissed this orphan of the
series, check it out. Like me you might find that,
with the passage of time and this splendid new edition,
Dracula's "scars" have somewhat healed.
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To
date this is the best DVD Anchor Bay has released
as part of its Hammer Collection. I saw the film on
laserdisc about 10 years ago; picture and sound were
pretty bad. (It was Pan &
Scan to boot.) AB's widescreen presentation blows
it away with a nearly flawless video transfer and
rich, vibrant color red (appropriately) in particular.
The Dolby Mono audio track is clear, crisp and never
harsh... No "cracklies" on any of those
bombastic Bernard music queues. Bernard's theme music
plays over some of the menu screens; the Main, Chapter
and Extras menu screens are animated. Two trailers
are included, one of them a double feature bill with
Horror
of Frankenstein. An audio commentary is
provided which Hammer fans should relish. Star Christopher
Lee, director Roy Ward Baker and Marcus Hearns, a
Hammer historian, participate. This is the most enjoyable
of Lee's Anchor Bay commentaries so far, as Hearns
smoothly and unobtrusively moderates the conversation
to allow Baker to get a word in edgewise now and again
and to prevent Lee from rambling on and on. (Lee,
as he freely admits in the track, does like to talk.)
Their discussion covers only a few aspects of the
actual production of Scars,
instead engaging a wide range of Hammer-related topics.
The main program on the bonus disc, The Many
Faces of Christopher Lee, is an intimate though
not terribly informative retrospective of the actor's
work, hosted by Lee himself. Shot in 1995, it features
Lee in his study talking to the camera without any
on/off screen questioning. He shares anecdotes from
his long and varied career (without coming off as
too self-aggrandizing, it should be noted), touching
on but a handful of his 200+ films. I found the discussions
of movie swordfighting and gunplay the most interesting.
Lee closes out the documentary with obviously heartfelt
words of remembrance in honor of his friends, the
late Peter Cushing and Vincent Price.
Also on the second disc are two music videos,
shot in the late '90s, with Lee joining vocalist Gary
Curtis anyone ever heard of this guy? for a duet
on "O Sole Mio/It's Now or Never" (with Lee crooning
the operatic Italian part) and "She'll Fall For Me",
a silly country-pop ditty. Lee, with his deep baritone
voice, actually sings well... but this is kitschy
nonsense and a wee bit embarrassing. Musical debacles
aside, Christopher Lee is the last "living legend"
of horror cinema. Fans of the venerable actor won't
want to miss out on this terrific package from Anchor
Bay. Dracula lives!
8/14/01 |
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UPDATE
The Anchor Bay set went OOP in 2008, and is now
fetching up to $50 used.
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