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| Above, Christopher Lee and Joanna Lumley in Satanic Rites of Dracula. |
Satanic Rites of Dracula Amazon synopsis:
A dying man’s report of a ritual black mass stirs Britain’s security chief into action, and a mansion filled with young vampire girls is soon discovered. And this is but the first twist in a labyrinth of horror. Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee pair up for the final Hammer Dracula in this follow-up to Dracula A.D. 1972. In this go-round, the Count (Christopher Lee, naturally) follows a more pulpish, super-villainous playbook, posing as a millionaire industrialist alive and well and living in London while secretly brewing up a batch of super-plague in a quest to destroy the world. Mixing Satanists, spies and sci-fi, the film makes viewers glad that Peter Cushing is on hand to solidly anchor the more outré elements as the effortlessly expositioning Dr. Van Helsing. Lee, in turn, has more dialogue as Dracula than was the norm, and rachets up the evil to the nth degree. Joanna Lumley (Absolutely Fabulous) costars. Also known as Count Dracula and His Vampire Bride.
I unearthed (pardon the pun) a bunch of DVDs the other day that I hadn't unpacked (or viewed before) when I moved to New Mexico three years ago (two I watched so far were Unthinkable (2010) with Samuel L. Jackson, which is a very good film and The Town (2010) with actor/director Ben Affleck, which is also pretty good, too). I watched another one last night that was given to me by Jerry Moore, better known as Karlos Borloff of Monster Madhouse television show. It was their broadcast of Satanic Rites of Dracula (the name they gave it is too long to state here) from Hammer Studios.
Monster Madhouse hijinks during the movie aside (images of Borloff and crew would be superimposed in the movie in spots), it made me realize again why I was never a fan of Hammer's horror films of the U.K. Keep in mind that I love the old Universal Pictures horror movies of the 1930s through the 1950s.
Hammer's horror movies were overly talky and the pacing of their films seemed disjointed to me, especially the action scenes.
Christopher Lee was okay as Dracula (he doesn't appear in the movie for about a half hour into it) and Peter Cushing as Van Helsing was the best part of the movie. He had an air of authority in it and was basically the glue that kept the movie from totally flying apart. From the reviews I've read on this film, it was a better film than its immediate predecessor, Dracula A.D. 1972, which isn't saying much. Speaking of which, Christopher Lee hardly ever spoke when he played Dracula, which is probably a good thing considering everyone else blabbed too much. At least he redeemed himself the following year in the James Bond flick, The Man With The Golden Gun.
Dracula's plan (in modern day) was to unleash a horrible plague to exterminate all of mankind. It struck me that this was a stupid plan as Dracula would kill off his blood supply. Van Helsing tried to point this out to the old Count, but the dialog was too muddled for Dracula to get the point.
Anyway, at least it was something to watch for a couple of hours. One thing I liked were the Universal trailers shown (I presume they were placed where commercials were during the original broadcast) of Frankenstein and Dracula trailers (such as the Bela Lugosi Dracula, House of Frankenstein and House of Dracula.
The Monster Madhouse promo of The Monster Movie Fan's Guide To Japan:
2 comments:
I always thought the idea was that Dracula was committing suicide by destroying the human race. Not sure whether that idea is contained in the film, or if I saw it somewhere else. One thing I didn't catch until recently is that Satanic rites is a direct sequel to AD 1972. I was "thrown off" because they recast the role of Jessica Van Helsing, and of course Dracula's (unseen) resurrection is not connected with his demise in the previous film. I always thought the ending was very lame; why would Dracula try to push through the hawthorn bush instead of just going around it? As an aside, I recall that Dracula AD 1972 was actually shown on US network TV, the CBS late show. It was late seventies I guess, because I was able to tape it on my Betamax. The grimmest parts were cut out, so it was interesting to watch the "uncut" version years later. Of the two, I enjoyed AD 1972 more because the repositioning of Dracula into modernity was a novelty, and also any movie with Caroline Munro automatically goes up three levels on my rating scale.
I think the suicide angle was speculated by Van Helsing, but not mentioned by Dracula. One would think Dracula would have good night vision abilities and recognize a hawthorn bush, even in the dark. I thought it was lame he didn't go around it either. I've never seen A.D. 1972. I agree on Caroline Munro. Water sprinklers can stop a vampire?! Oh, well.
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