Taste The Blood Of Dracula (1970)

Promotional Poster signed by Christopher Lee

Taste the Blood of Dracula, the fifth installment of Hammer’s Dracula series, is a well made but unfortunately routine affair.  We have all the trappings of a good Hammer film:  a red-eyed Christopher Lee, beautiful young women falling under his spell, a great deal of blood, and an intrepid seeker of good to put a stop to the vampire.  However, in trying to expand the story of Dracula, director Peter Sasdy and screenwriter Anthony Hinds make the Count almost a guest star in his own film. While Taste the Blood of Dracula does have certain positive attributes, ultimately it is a dreary chapter in Hammer’s Dracula saga.

Victorian gentlemen William Hargood, Samuel Paxton, and Jeremy Secker (Geoffrey Keen, Peter Sallis, and John Carson) are typically repressed men, except that they are secretly libertines who clandestinely visit brothels to try to relieve their boredom.  One night they encounter Lord Courtley (Ralph Bates), who entices them to sell their souls to the devil in exchange for eternal pleasure.  In the midst of the Satanic ritual, which involves the blood of Dracula, the three men kill Lord Courtley in a panic.  Dracula (Christopher Lee) returns to life using Courtley’s remains and  decides to take revenge upon each of the men, using their own children to help him.  He takes control of Hargood’s daughter Alice (Linda Hayden), and it is up to her fiancé Paul Paxton (Anthony Higgins) to save her before Dracula can turn her into his disciple.

Taste the Blood of Dracula does have much to recommend it.  Its superior production design pulls us quickly into its world of decadence and revenge.  The decrepit church is covered in cobwebs and dust, and it seems as if no one had ever been there in years. Meanwhile, the homes of the gentlemen are sumptuous and beautiful. This is particularly true of Secker’s study, which is filled with strange and mystical objects that subtly suggest his unusual and arcane interests. The overall effect is to convince us in little time that we are in Victorian England, awaiting the eruption of Dracula.

Dracula thirsts for blood.

 Peter Sasdy's stylish direction persuasively draws us into the film’s world of menace and grief. By using a hand held camera held very close to the actors, he instills a frantic sense of isolation and panic. Then, positioning the camera at a very high angle in the church, Sasdy effectively suggests the powerlessness of the characters in comparison to Dracula; conversely, he allows us to feel Dracula's power by shooting Lee from a low angle.  Sasdy also makes Dracula’s resurrection scene a very memorable one; Lord Courtley’s body dissolves and a red-eyed Dracula emerges from the remains.  The color red permeates the film, underscoring the importance of blood to Dracula’s life and resurrection.

The performances in the film are all superior.  Surprisingly, the best performance comes not from Christopher Lee, but from Geoffrey Keen as William Hargood.  He perfectly inhabits his character, underplaying Hargood as a repressed gentleman who thinks that he has seen it all, but who soon realizes that he is in over his head.  His tone of voice is almost always one of disgust, and he makes it clear that Hargood believes that he is in complete command of his world.   Without Keen’s outstanding performance of a truly despicable man, one of the film’s key themes, that of the sins of the father being visited upon the children, would be much less compelling.

A pissed off Count.

Christopher Lee does what he can with Dracula, but his character is so limited in this film (which will be discussed below) that he is reduced to uttering lines like “The first,” and “Now,” with no other dialogue at all.  Lee certainly gives his best effort; he uses his commanding presence and intense eyes to easily convinces us that he can manipulate the minds of the women that he controls and vampirizes.  However, he is in the film so little that his role is little more than a cameo.  While his performance is good, Lee cannot overcome the fact that his character is more of a plot device than the legendary master of evil that is Dracula.

Taste the Blood of Dracula is well designed, directed with care, and boasts a good cast.  All of these good ingredients, however, cannot overcome the film’s uneven and unfocused script.  It aspires to be an exploration of the sins of the father being visited upon the children.  At the same time, it is also attempting to interrogate the hypocrisy of the Victorian gentlemen who present a prim and proper image to the world but live a life of debauchery in secret.  These themes however have little to do with Dracula or vampirism; the effect is that Dracula is forced to seek revenge upon these men who haven’t really done anything to him.  As has been noted by others¹, revenge is a weak motive for the bloodsucking Count. We never see him trying to feed upon the innocent or turn people into vampires except in the way that it helps his revenge.  The script could have easily been rewritten with Dracula as an evil hypnotist without too many changes to the script.

Paul leaps into action....

 Additionally, the film very routine, going through all the motions of a Hammer Dracula film with little to invigorate it or make it unique.  This is particularly obvious near the conclusion, when Paul is advised to arm himself with knowledge to defeat Dracula. He quickly finds one book that apparently contains all the knowledge to defeat a vampire.  The next time we see Paul, he is now a fearless vampire killer, having learned in a matter of hours the kind of skills that took Van Helsing a lifetime to master.  Taste the Blood of Dracula is the fifth film in Hammer's Dracula series, and so we must assume some knowledge of Dracula and vampires, but the ending just seems hurried, as if the filmmakers had grown weary of the story, and tacked a standard Hammer Dracula ending onto it.

Taste the Blood of Dracula is an entertaining but ultimately unsatisfying Hammer Dracula film.  It has a good cast and superior direction, but its themes are disorganized and unfocused, and its title character is almost a walk-on role.  It doesn’t embarrass the Hammer canon the way some of the later installments would, but it does little to add to it as well.  It the end, it provokes a yawn or a shrug, not a chill or contemplation.

Eric Miller

The Curse Of Frankenstein (1957)

In prison and awaiting execution, Dr. Victor Frankenstein recounts to a priest what led him to his current circumstance. He inherited his family's wealth after the death of his mother when he was still only a young man. He hired Paul Krempe as his tutor and he immediately developed an interest in medical science. After several years, he and Krempe became equals and he developed an interest in the origins and nature of life. After successfully re-animating a dead dog, Victor sets about constructing a man using body parts he acquires for the purpose including the hands of a pianist and the brain of a renowned scholar. As Frankenstein's excesses continue to grow, Krempe is not only repulsed by what his friend has done but is concerned for the safety of the beautiful Elizabeth, Victor's cousin and fiancée who has come to live with them. His experiments lead to tragedy and his eventual demise. By garykmcd

The Curse of Frankenstein was Hammer’s first color horror film and set the stage for a run of classic gothic horror pictures. It was a worldwide success which led to the studio’s own versions of Dracula and The Mummy.  When released, the film drew poor reviews, which further proves that reviewers really don’t know shit, myself excluded.  Thank god the public didn’t share this view. Martin Scorsese and Tim Burton have both sung the movie’s praises and have cited it as an influence on their own work. 

This film introduces us to a duo that became legendary in the horror genre:  Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. As Baron Frankenstein, Cushing delivers an incredible performance and makes the character his own.  This isn’t Colin Clive, who played the good doctor in Universal’s Frankenstein, babbling about “it’s alive” and feeling sorry for himself.  Cushing’s Frankenstein is banging the maid and not above killing to get the parts he needs to create life.  In fact, Baron Frankenstein is the real source of horror in this movie.  Lee’s role is minor in comparison but he does give a decent performance.  But in his defense, it would be hard for anybody to top Boris Karloff as the Frankenstein monster and this creature was portrayed completely different. While Universal made the monster sympathetic, Hammer’s monster was a symbol of the evil and corruption of Baron Frankenstein.  In continuing with comparisons, while Universal switched up doctors throughout their movies, Hammer instead focused on the complex character of the doctor and changed up on the monsters.  Curse of Frankenstein also throws a change up on the cliché of the mad doctor’s assistant. It’s no longer a hunchback or displeasing visual character but instead is the Baron’s former teacher and the voice of reason over the immoral acts that Frankenstein is engaging in.

Terrance Fisher directed the movie and went on to become one of the prominent horror directors in the 2^nd half of the 20^th century.  Although not as heavy in Curse of Frankenstein, Fisher was the first to have sexual overtones and explicit horror in his films.  This is common place in films now, but for that time it was definitely groundbreaking.  The screenplay was written by Jimmy Sangster and this was the first of many team-ups with Fisher.  In fact, this collaboration may be just as important as the Lee/Cushing duo at Hammer. (Let’s also mention that Sangster wrote the Horror In The Heights episode from the original Night Stalker series:  One of my favorite TV series and a huge inspiration to the future X-Files)   The duo also collaborated The Horror of Dracula, The Mummy and Brides Of Dracula. 

I also want to give a mention to makeup artist Phil Leaky.  Although his makeup isn’t as iconic as what the legendary Jack Pierce created for Karloff, it is actually much more realistic. It actually looks like the monster went through surgery and was pieced together from various dead bodies. And with this being one the first color horror films, it had to have an effect on an audience not used to seeing something this graphic. 

Having just viewed this movie again, I must say that it holds up today.  It showcases what made Hammer so great during that golden era.  The mood, the atmosphere and the rich color make this a perfect example of everything that made Hammer horror movies so special.  If you’re unfamiliar and wish to discover what the term “Gothic Horror” symbolizes, this is the movie to start with. 

Critic R. D. Smith proclaimed, “For all lovers of the cinema, only two words describe this film – Depressing, Degrading!”  To you Mr. Smith I say, Kiss My Ass.

- Kevin Booker

CAST:

• Peter Cushing as Baron Victor von Frankenstein
• Christopher Lee as The Creature
• Hazel Court as Elizabeth
• Robert Urquhart as Dr. Paul Krempe
• Valerie Gaunt as Justine
• Noel Hood as Aunt Sophia
• Melvyn Hayes as Young Victor
• Paul Hardtmuth as Professor Bernstein
• Fred Johnson as Grandpa

TRIVIA: 

For many years this held the distinction of being the most profitable film to be produced in England by a British studio.

The first Frankenstein movie to be filmed in color, from November 19 1956- January 3 1957.

The idea originated with Milton Subotsky, who went on to co-found Amicus Films, Hammer's main rival during the 1960s and early 1970s. The script was revised several times to avoid repeating any elements from the Universal Frankenstein series. As part of this effort, new monster make-up had to be devised especially for this film.

Christopher Lee's monster make-up was almost literally done at the "last minute". After previous attempts to design a monster make-up using a cast of Lee's head had failed, make-up artist Philip Leakey made the final design the day before shooting began, directly onto Lee's face, using primarily cotton and other household materials. Since he didn't use any latex or molds, the make-up had to be recreated from scratch every day.

Although they had both previously appeared in Hamlet and Moulin Rouge, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing met on the set of this film for the first time. They would pass the time between shots by exchanging Looney Tunes phrases, and quickly developed a fast friendship, which lasted until Cushing's death in 1994.

QUOTES:

Baron Frankenstein: Let's let our friend here rest in peace... while he can.

Baron Frankenstein: I've harmed nobody, just robbed a few graves!

Priest: Perhaps you'd better start from the beginning.  (Anybody that has heard the beginning of White Zombie’s song Electric Head Part 1, will recognize this immediately when it’s said)

Baron Frankenstein: Pass the marmalade Elizabeth.