Dracula: Prince
of Darkness, 1964. Directed by Terrence Fisher. Christopher Lee,
Andrew Kier, Barbara Shelly.
Synopsis: A group of
English tourists are seeking a place to stay for the evening while
travelling in the Carpathian mountains. The local monastery is full up and
there are no vacancies at the inns, either. Our travellers wind up at
Castle Dracula, which looks quaint enough in the daylight. Father Sandor
from the monastery has warned them away from the place, but they stupidly
ignore him. As night falls, one of the men is abducted by the castle's
caretaker, who upends him above a tub and slashes his throat. He bleeds
into the tub, over the dusty remains therein, and suddenly, Dracula rises
again and promptly transforms one of the women into a vampire wanton. Our
hero and her fiancee seek help at the monastery and this time, Father
Sandor takes them in. Sandor knows what evil has descended on the land,
but is unable to stop Dracula from giving his unholy communion to our
hero's girl. The chase is on to destroy the vampire before his chosen
bride joins him in undeath. The film climaxes with a twilight showdown on
the frozen river that flows in front of Castle Dracula, when Father Sandor
realizes that the running water beneath the ice is fatal to
vampires....
For a while, the formula in the
Hammer Films had the power of myth. The elements assembled for the Hammer
Horrors seemed ordained by fate. These movies pitted the upright forces of
good against the depraved forces of evil according to strictly ritualized
rules: the secondary female character becomes a vampire wanton, the hero's
girfriend becomes tainted, the vampire hunting savant educates the hero in
the ways of vampire slaying, and the vampire is destroyed at the
end--usually in some variety of spectacular disintegration. The formula
strangled the Hammer Horrors in the end, reducing them to pale shadows
that subsisted on t&a and a splash of red rather than the red meat of
great horror movies. But at the oustet, before it was stale, it worked
marvelously.
Dracula: Prince of Darkness is
an oddity in the progression of the Hammer movies. Oh, it follows the
formula religiously, of course, but it is radically distinct from The
Horror of Dracula. By removing the film from the confines of
Victorian England and by changing the savant into robust Andrew Kier
rather than slender Peter Cushing, Dracula: Prince of Darkness
FEELS different from The
Horror of Dracula even though it really isn't different at all.
This is the third of Hammer's Dracula films and the second to star
Christopher Lee (Lee declined a part in Brides of Dracula, fearing
that he would be typecast). Lee cements his position as Lugosi's heir to
the part here, despite having no dialogue. The screenplay reportedly had
Dracula uttering lines like, "I am the apocalypse!" which Lee refused to
speak aloud on film (and really, who can blame him?). Lee's cultured voice
was a rich part of his performance in the first film. Its absence here is
disappointing, but Lee's PRESENCE still dominates the film. It should be
said of this film that the scene where Father Sandor shoots the ice out
from under Dracula at this film's climax may very well be the best vampire
slaying on film. It is certainly one of the most unusual.
I have to admit that Dracula:
Prince of Darkness is my favorite among Hammer's Dracula movies,
largely because it was the first one I actually saw. I originally saw it
late at night on television when I was sleeping over at a friend's house
when I was 12. It was a crappy print that was cropped down from the film's
glorious widescreen and liberally peppered with commercials, but it still
worked us over the way a good horror movie should work over twelve year
old kids. I have never forgotten the last shot of Dracula's face pressed
against the ice at the conclusion of this movie. I always wanted to see it
again, but it was unavailable for years on video. Fortunately, the folks
at Anchor Bay are interested in Hammer movies and released a deluxe
edition a few years ago, which includes a widescreen version of the film,
outtakes, and miscellaneous other goodies. This is the version I watched
for this review. The Hammer films were not, as a rule, particularly
widescreen (DPoD is 1.85:1), but Terrence Fisher had an eye for
composing the frame in widescreen. Watching the film anew, widescreen for
the first time, was, as usual, a revelation. Other elements of the film
don't hold up particularly well, though, which demonstrates that the way
children perceive things is radically different from the way adults
perceive things. In particular, this film is even MORE cavalier
about throwing characters into the meat grinder than its predecessors
were. Our hero's friends are all dead before they even register as
characters. The formula begins to show through through repetition, too.
The hermetic environment that results from filming on the Shepperton
soundstages is now a little bit over-familiar, an effect exacerbated by
the relative lack of extras in the cast. Hammer did things on the cheap
and it begins to show up in this movie.
And yet, in spite of all that, the
film still works. By the mid-point of the movie, I was thoroughly
engrossed. The Hammer formula was still more a ritual back then, and it
resonated, and still resonates, with the power of myth.
