Drácula vuelve de la tumba

Sporting the ultra camp title - "Dracula Has Risen From the Grave", this is a solid entry in Hammer's Dracula series. What I love about Hammer is that they aren't afraid to take an existing story and play around with it to create something new. Even if the idea behind is less than brilliant and most studios would have shied away, Hammer approach it with gusto, and the results are always good natured, easy viewing that's hard to dislike. This film follows Count Dracula as he is resurrected shortly after the priest, Ernst Muller, exorcises his castle. Dracula doesn't take this sort of behaviour lightly, and so decides to take on revenge on the holy man - by taking his niece as his bride!

Dracula is one of the greatest characters ever to be written and portrayed on screen, and it's also one that Christopher Lee has become famous for playing. Unfortunately, Christopher Lee doesn't have a great deal of screen time in this flick; but every moment he is on screen is a highlight and, as usual, he does well with the role and proves that he is the only man other than Bela Lugosi to do it right. Freddie Francis (Dr Terror, The Creeping Flesh) directs this film and succeeds in creating a morbid and fascinating atmosphere that bodes well with the subject material on hand. The film is stylishly shot, and features some of the best use of lighting ever seen in a Hammer film. The camp style that the studio is famous for is here by the bucket load too, and that can only be a good thing. This is hardly Hammer's finest hour, however; the film is relatively slow to start, and the story isn't the most inventive ever to come from the studio - but Hammer fans will enjoy it, and I would have no qualms with recommending this as a decent waste of your time.

When his castle is exorcised, Dracula (Christopher Lee) plots his revenge against the Monsignor (Rupert Davies) who performed the rites by attempting to make the holy man's young niece his bride.

This film is scandalous. Sure it passed the censors, and that is great, and Lee gives another great Dracula performance (with Davies as a more than adequate nemesis). But what we have here is an atheist in the home of a clergyman! Can you be an atheist and still believe in vampires?

Apparently, this was the most commercially successful of the Hammer Dracula films. I am not surprised, as it is quite entertaining. And with all due respect to Terence Fisher, I think I tend to prefer Freddie Francis' direction a little more. Francis knows his camera, and I think that adds something to his directing prowess.

Great Gothic Hammer horror. One of the better Dracula sequels and one of director Freddie Francis' best. It has a lot of the elements you expect and appreciate from Hammer: solid actors, great sets, quality direction, beautiful and vivacious young women. The plot is relatively simple: Dracula wants revenge and pretty blonde Veronica Carlson but her Monsignor uncle and loser boyfriend have a thing or two to say about that. There's also some interesting additions to the mythology where belief vs atheism is concerned. It all makes for a very entertaining sequel full of many familiar and proved effective Hammer staples, with several new ones as well.

Great opening for this installment, a deaf altar boy discovers a young woman hanging upside down from the church bell, blood dripping from her neck. Move forward a year and Count Dracula is accidentally revived. He goes on his usual round of terror and bloodsucking, his target of desire being the beautiful Veronica Carlson. He certainly has great taste in women! The sets are great, I felt like I was almost in the mountain village. Good cast, nice to see Hammer's most prolific actor Michael Ripper have a larger part than normal. No Peter Cushing here, which makes the vampire hunter aspect interesting. There is some debate within the film of faith versus atheism, apparently staking a vampire does not work if the person doing the staking lacks religious belief. Interesting. We have no nudity but there are sexual overtones. Thankfully we get plenty of blood, plus Hammer's trademark day for night scenes and swirling fog. Not one of the studio's best vampire movies but it's still a wonderful piece of Gothic horror, I grew up on watching these films and love immersing myself into them, over and over again.

The folks at Hammer Film Productions were nothing if not passionate and professional. This entry into the legendary series is only an itty-bitty notch below their inaugural effort, the great "Horror Of Dracula,' as the second best of the entire series.

Chrisopher Lee is at his menacing best. No one can drive a horse-pulled hearse with his fierce intensity. And those eyes, YIKES! What a great effect, one that still gets me 35 years after i first saw the film as a 14-year old in Los Angeles' San Gabriel Valley (and where I saw it on TV not 15 minutes ago).

Hammer vets Freddie Francis and Anthony Hinds create killer-diller fun with strong atmosphere; eerie, colorful lighting and a solid story. And the acting is great, too. Hammer staff composer James Bernard's exciting score adds to the enjoyment.

Hammer's films are for kids ... kids like me who loved then as a teenager and kids like me who are now over 50.