October Edition #28: DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE

Director: Freddie Francis
Screenplay: Anthony Hinds, based on characters created by Bram Stoker
Starring: Christopher Lee, Rupert Davies, Veronica Carlson, Barry Andrews
Release Date: 1968


On a routine checkup of a monastery in the village of Kleinberg, Monsignor Ernst Mueller (Davies) is appalled to discover a priest who has succumbed to alcoholism and villagers too frightened to attend Sunday service in a church that is falls beneath the shadow of Castle Dracula during the twilight hours. He drags the cowardly priest up the mountain to Dracula’s castle to perform the rite of exorcism on the evil landmark, placing a gigantic silver cross over the entrance to the castle in the hopes of assuaging the fears of the locals and finally putting an end to the vampire lords’ pestilence. Caught in the middle of a nasty storm in the wake of the exorcism, the priest falls and hits his head on some rocks, drawing a significant amount of blood which drips into a frozen stream containing the body of Dracula (Lee), who is instantly revived by the holy man’s plasma, and apparently woke up on the wrong side of the coffin. Unable to enter his homestead on account of the Monsignor’s actions, the enraged vampire enslaves the priest via hypnosis and follows the Monsignor to his hometown seeking unholy vengeance. Caught in the middle of all of this is the Monsignor’s beloved niece Maria (Carlson) and her boyfriend Paul (Andrews), a baker at a local café, as Dracula sets his sights on Maria in an attempt to utterly ruin the holy man who desecrated his home.

You're gonna need a bigger cross.

Well, I fucked up, because I thought I was watching this series of Dracula movies from Hammer Films in order, but apparently there is a movie that came between this and the last one I saw, THE BRIDES OF DRACULA, that I missed. I have no goddamn clue how Dracula wound up encased in ice at the bottom of a ravine, though I do find it funny that this is the second old-school horror flick I’ve watched this month that features this ludicrous plot point, the other example being the icy tomb of Frankenstein’s monster in FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLFMAN. Like that film, this one also has to invent a new rule in order to resurrect its title monster. In theory blood droplets resurrecting a deceased vampire makes about as much sense as moon rays having the same effect on a werewolf, but both explanations reek of desperation on the part of the screenwriters. Whatever the case, once DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE gets past the confusing setup it is actually a fun, if highly predictable little fright flick, dutifully running down a check list of vampire lore and clichés that were already old hat even when this was released.

The first twenty minutes in the village of Kleinberg quickly re-establish all of the gothic mood and iconography of the previous entries in the Hammer Dracula series. My only real beef with this scenes is that director Freddie Francis spends far too much time setting up Dracula’s resurrection due to the stuffy Monsignor Ernst’s interfering ways, only to quickly shuffle that character into the background about forty minutes in and focus on the stories’ actual protagonists, Maria and Paul. After all of that, we are then introduced to even more characters, and while it did begin to grow a bit tiresome, I actually found the character of Paul to be a rather likeable enough bloke, which helped sustain my interest for the rest of the running time.

Professor Sternface McHugechops does not approve.

Christopher Lee is his usual badass self, conveying equal parts feral intensity and swoon-worthy charisma. His Dracula strikes a hellishly intimidating presence with his impeccably slick-back hair and fiery bloodshot gaze, but he still does a good job of sexing the place up, especially in his scenes with a slutty barmaid named Zena and his encounters with a quivering Maria in her bedroom. In both instances he seduces the women without saying a word, oozing cool, cocky confidence from every pore, effectively neck-fucking them with no objections. Though he has far more screen time here than he did in HORROR OF DRACULA, he is still fairly absent most of the time, making his few major appearances that much more effective.

Let the sexing commence!

Be honest. Does my face smell like bacon?

What really hurts this movie is the absence of Peter Cushing, whose Professor Van Helsing proved to be Dracula’s most worthy foil. The obsessive determination of Cushing’s character is replaced with Davies’ Monsignor Ernst, and instantly unlikable, insufferably stuffy and closed-minded ass. His bull-headedness is what brings about the return of Dracula in the first place, and his conflict with Paul over the latter’s professed atheism paints the holy man as the worst kind of intolerant dickhead who, thank the screenwriting heavens, does not turn out to be our hero. There are also a few really stupid scenes, like when the enslaved priest is forced to dispose of a woman’s body by shoving it into the tiniest fireplace in Britain. The film cuts to another scene as the burning begins, only to return a few minutes later to show the priest openly weeping, the body entirely gone, leaving not a trace of ash or even bone.

Minor nitpicks aside, every other aspect of the production falls directly in line with what I have come to expect from a Hammer horror title. Though filmed on a very low budget, the period production design is appropriately ornate, if obviously entirely stage-bound. I particularly appreciated the intricate rooftop set used several times throughout the film, most effectively in a chase scene towards the end. The photography does a good job of setting an appropriately gothic mood. There is a very particular effect director Francis employs any time Dracula is present involving some kind of color filter which produces a surreal orange-ish tint that rings the frame that is very visually off-putting and eerie. And the blood, though seldom seen, is a bright, vivacious tint of red that almost bursts off the screen in all of its Technicolor glory.

Quick! Someone get this man some Visine!

Too late.

DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE is kinda corny and ultimately very predictable, but there’s something oddly comforting to be found in its old-fashioned chills and thrills. If there’s one complaint I can lodge against modern horror movies, it is that most of them are soul-crushingly gruesome affairs devoid of imagination or wit, whose sole focus is on the degradation  and utter ruination of its characters. This flick might be a retread of themes and imagery I’ve seen a thousand times over, but it was still able to take me back to a time when horror movies could be fun.

My Rating:
6.5/10