Dracula braucht frisches Blut

As a Dracula film, this is rather sad and misguided and very typical of the late Hammer fare. But as a piece of classic cheesy 70's British filmmaking, it's a treasure! Loads of tacky scenes and acting, rough looking down-and-out location work and a collection of cheddary extras and character actors.

Peter Cushing looks like he's about to kick the bucket (die) although he miraculously seems to grow younger and less grandpa looking by Star Wars (1977). Who'd have thought he make it to 1994!! There's a healthy dose of Cushing hair flicking in this. Although not to the standard of earlier Frankenstein hair flicks, the old locks are still thrashing around :)

Hammer's last throw with Christopher Lee who refused to do another Dracula after AD 1972. He regarded the last Hammer's as such a departure from Stoker as to be sacrilegious. This replaces horror with a thriller. Dracula in a thriller? French Connection was a thriller. How does the suave and deadly Count become transplanted into a more style which uses more realism? He cannot, he is incongruous. Consequently Dracula makes almost no appearance until the last 15 minutes. The rest of the film is a chase between his henchmen and Cushing with the police. The quality of the Dracula films had deteriorated in their glamour and stylishness and transferring to the modern day was an attempt to inject glamour again. The most interesting piece of this film is the satanic rite of the title. Its images and practises have been used by the Church of Satan and other occult groups. The actor, scientist and parapsychologist Stephen Armourae has referred to it in articles and the actress Mia Martin has appeared in some of his drawings and paintings. Oddly despite such a high profile release none of the actors including Pauline Peart and Mia Martin did anything since despite their glamour and looks.

Saw Satanic Rites last night for the second time, and paid more attention this time. The film, if you`re waiting to see a lot of Dracula will be a bit of a let down (but let`s face it, since Taste the Blood of Dracula, I don`t think Christopher Lee has had 30 minutes screen time with all of the Dracula films joined together.) The movie starts slowly, with, for once, no Dracula resurrection scene. He`s just back, and does not appear until well into the film. (He appears in a scene obviously stuck in because they realized he had not made an appearance at all so long into the film). When Peter Cushing appears, you start to feel like this is a proper Hammer film after all. Peter Cushing really does this one justice. Then from the time he visits D.D.Denham, it is a pretty good Dracula picture. The action between our hero and villain gets going, and builds up to a reasonable finale. This is better than Dracula AD 1972, but as I have said before, the whole series should have stayed in Victorian times. Joanna Lumley is radiant as Jessica, who's character returns from the previous film. It is a pretty scary premise. Dracula, finally sick of being resurrected for 2 or 3 days at a time, wants to end it all, but in doing this, he wants to take everyone with him. THE WHOLE WORLD! It is a good plot which just happens to have Dracula as the figure-head. For once Christopher Lee gets a reasonably decent script and delivers his lines beautifully. A couple of points. In some of the Dracula films, we are introduced to new but apparently tested ways of dealing with the fanged one. Dracula, Prince of Darkness introduced clear running water, as used at the end of DPOD, in Dracula AD 1972, and in Satanic Rites. Then in AD `72 we are introduced to the fact that the good Count can be knobbled with a silver bladed knife. Handy, since Van Helsing has one. Then in this movie, Van Helsing introduces the Hawthorn bush, from which Christ recieved his crown of thorns. Guess where Drac ends up near the end? Do these things really work? Or is it just that sunlight and the old stake are boring now, and the writers just make these things up? I feel a bit cheated when someone like Dracula can be beaten by lightning, drowned in a moat (NOT running water), or overcome in a church (whereas he had already killed a girl and placed her body in a full blown God worshipping church.) This film, when it gets going, is a pleasing finale to the Christopher Lee years as Dracula, and to boot, Peter Cushing delivers a really good performance too.

Hammer's penultimate Dracula film and the last one to feature a tired Christopher Lee in the title role.

This is a significant improvement over Dracula A.D. 1972, but Peter Cushing is used significantly less in the fight scenes (which are not particularly good anyway).

The story, which revolves around a revived Dracula (in disguise) getting government ministers and leading doctors to help him take over the world with the plague has its merits. Infact, the story is well-paced and it's content is refreshingly varied (bike chases, cellars with female vampires, a plague victim etc).

Freddie Jones turns up with a superbly jittery performance as a scientist (he was also excellent in "Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed").

Christopher Lee doesn't get enough screen time, but his scenes with Peter Cushing are, as you might expect, good (n.b. the scene in the tower block where Van Helsing goes to expose D.D. Denham as Dracula). Lee, also gets a chance to utter the immortal lines "..my revenge has spread over centuries and has just begun..." (which is apparently from the book).

If you go into this film with an open-mind, you won't be too disappointed - there is certainly plenty going on, even if the plot is not very tightly structured.

1973's "The Satanic Rites of Dracula" may have been commissioned by Warner Brothers to fulfill a 2 picture Hammer contract, but with the colossal failure of "Dracula A.D. 1972" and the same production team at the helm (Alan Gibson directing from a Don Houghton script), production would proceed with little confidence as "Dracula is Dead and Well and Living in London." Warners disowned the final product, issued in the US five years after completion with the title "Count Dracula and His Vampire Bride," Christopher Lee's 7th and final appearance in the title role, teamed for the third time with Peter Cushing's Van Helsing, who had destroyed his nemesis in modern day King's Road to conclude "AD," only to learn that the Count was swiftly revived by a new acolyte for a new mission, bringing in the nation's most powerful men in a plot to infect the world with a rapid mutation of bubonic plague. One general, one politician, one landowning Baron, and one Nobel Prize winning bacteriologist are installed under the pretense of using the weapon only as a deterrent, the vampire cult stationed at remote Pelham House, where blood rituals take place and biker guards attired in afghan prowl the grounds with sniper rifles. What a jumbled mishmash, keeping Lee offscreen until the final third, when his initial faceoff with Van Helsing evokes fond memories of past glories, and includes the bilingual Lee's personal tribute to Bela Lugosi by adopting a vaguely Hungarian accent. He remains a shadowy figure seated behind his desk as the reclusive entrepreneur D.D. Denham, the light reflected away to avert suspicion, Van Helsing armed with a silver bullet but not before making inquiries of the mysterious Denham, a helpless captive to witness Dracula's suicidal triumph. The ridiculous ease with which all vampires are dispatched also afflicts the central character himself, denied access to final revenge by the branches of a hawthorn bush (the object of Christ's crown of thorns), sent tumbling into an unworthy demise to quietly expire one last time, as opposed to the finale of "Horror of Dracula," a thunderous music score fully engaging the viewer in its thrilling battle of arch nemeses. The satanic rites themselves are superfluous and take up the entire opening half hour, after which Cushing effortlessly carries the picture on his own while protagonists fall like dominos; he'd be back for a 5th outing in Hong Kong, "The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires," while Lee concludes his run with more screen time than in any previous Hammer entry except "Scars of Dracula," at least bowing out in a literal blaze of glory.