Dracula AD 1972

In *modern* 1972 London, a smokin' hot Caroline Munro (in her films for Hammer, she's the perfect embodiment of pure lust) volunteers to be the sacrifice for Count Dracula (she gets caught up in the whole black mass scene, unaware of how real it is) as servant Johnny Alucard pours his blood (slit from his wrist) onto the ash of the remains of the undead vampire (there's a bit more of Drac left near the grave of Lawrence Van Helsing) in a cup, about to puddle her chest. Smoke from the ruins of his unmarked grave (after Alucard removes a stake stuck in the ground) soon fades and there he stands, that towering figure of a dead serious Christopher Lee, stern, hard as stone, forboding. He gives her the death kiss and while she's horrified at not being able to move as Drac approached her, Munro sure seems to enjoy it after the first bite. Too bad Drac tosses her in some stone rubble of an ancient gutted church (where the black mass took place, conducted by Satanist Alucard) like trash, what a waste. Meanwhile, the group accompanying Alucard become Dracula fodder (Alucard is a disciple of Drac and will happily provide him victims). He wants Van Helsing's granddaughter, a centuries-long desire from beyond the grave to get revenge on the name of his most hated enemy.

There is evil in this world. There's dark, awful things. Occasionally, we get a glimpse of them, but there are dark corners, horrors almost impossible to imagine...even in our worst nightmares.

I think this was a wasted opportunity. A major disappointment of mine was that you have Drac in 1972 yet we don't see him out and about experiencing a whole different era, a whole different time. He just hangs out at the old ruins of St. Bartophs while his minions work to bring him the granddaughter of the ancestor of the latest Van Helsing he would soon do battle. It is amusing seeing the likes of Christopher Neame and Stephanie Beacham (once again, showcasing that awesome rack that somehow, someway holds its place with barely any supports) as a "fringe group" of party-hearty hippy Londoners living it up and raising a little trouble.

 I think despite being saddled with a rather thankless inspector role, Michael Coles, often entrusting in the occult wisdom of Cushing's expert, Lortimer Van Helsing, a brilliant professor who teaches at seminars and functions about the historical evils of his family's research, does a really swell job. He actually listens to Van Helsing, not cynically dismissing what he has to say about vampires, although he knows that it sounds preposterous and telling his superiors this would not be wise. I swear few people can pull off the dialogue about how to kill a vampire like Cushing could and do so without sounding foolish or insincere. Coles is at his wit's end with the bizarre nature of the murders starting to compile, bodies drained, puncture marks on the throats of the victims. Why not turn to an expert who might can shed light on such unusual killings? While the movie itself really does little to creatively change the Hammer Dracula formula (especially the way Van Helsing dispatches Dracula and how he eventually impales of a sharp, pointy stick, once again deteriorating into a skeleton, then ash), Dracula AD 1972 only offers a more contemporary setting for the plot itself (well, contemporary for 1972).

 Lee gets to do little more than look menacing, order Neame around to do his bidding, and bite pretty young things under his vampiric spell. We get plenty of Cushing, so at least the movie has that going for it. Because Cushing embues his Van Helsings with integrity, courage, a sense of urgency, knowing what must be done and doing so despite the grim outlook that awaits him...this never wore out its welcome to me. If Cushing was just going through the motions and picking up a paycheck, he sure fooled me because, more often than not, he provides his characters in these movies with a conviction and quality that convinced me he invested in the parts. I think that is why I admire and appreciate Cushing, the actor. He loved us, his horror fans, and continued to work in the genre when he certainly could have thumbed his nose at those who spent money and cared about these movies.

While Lee always looked great on screen in that black cape (with blood red inner lining), casting that look of ferocity at anyone that dared challenge him, he rarely evolved Dracula in the Hammer films (look at Count Dracula, Jess Franco's film as an example of what he could do with the part when truly inspired) performance-wise. To me, Dracula AD 1972 felt like a desperate attempt to draw in the younger audience perhaps now disenchanted with the traditional Hammer movies set in centuries past featuring the fanged Count and his long-time enemy Van Helsing. Still, the film seems to promise what it doesn't quite provide: Drac in modern London, circa 1972. I imagine I would have been sorely upset, as a cinema-goer in 1972, that Dracula didn't imerse himself within the nightly London scene: certainly the youth drug club, the Cavern, could've been an interesting backdrop for Lee to clash against. The streets with the flashy pubs and seedy establishments. And, even the deaths of the vampires, how they respond to the sunlight or weapons used to harm/kill them, don't quite succeed in delivering in the satisfying sanguinary fashion.