The Satanic Rites of Dracula

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.

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.

Scared me at the age of eleven. The best thing I can say about this film. It should probably have been renamed 'A Stake Too Far' as by this time the Christopher Lee Dracula franchise had been bled dry.

Watch it by all means. But whilst you're watching ask yourself this: The fundamental plot line has Dracula and his cohorts wanting to wipe out the entire human race by releasing a deadly plague. If everyone's dead, on whose blood are they going to survive?

I guess Christopher Lee had had enough of Dracula, and this was his swan song. This has a clever twist, bringing the old guy back one more time. It involves the Count trying to bring a plague on humanity by using a group of significant businessmen to do his bidding. Of course, it's the same old crosses made by two sticks of wood, and so on. Cushing does his usual spooky character, this time a latter day Van Helsing. I have to say I enjoyed it.

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.