Hammer 2022: Dracula - Prince of Darkness

 I had to shorten my Letterboxd review but I'll go ahead and add something on a film so often talked about in the past as I go through Hammer weekend now.

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I’m thinking when Father Sandor tells you not to go to Carlsbad, it’s best to listen to him. However, outsiders from England, The Kents, don’t, instead opting to travel to Carlsbad, left stranded by a refusing coachmen who will not look at Castle Dracula. Other horses with no coachmen arrive and the Kents decide to hop into the coach and position to drive to Carlsbad, taken to Castle Dracula, eventually endangered (or killed) by Dracula and his servant, Klove. Father Sandor, obviously, will have to match wits with Dracula, and either contain or destroy the evil before his vampire bite becomes an infestation threatening anyone unfortunate enough to be targeted. Klove isn’t the only one Dracula will use to gain advantage when available: Thorley Walters’ Ludwig, with troubled mind and feeble mental strength, has a home at Sandor’s abbey.

 

Barbara Shelley, an acting legend in England, is Helen Kent, terrified and paranoid, seemingly held in a knowing fear that something is very wrong: her husband, Alan (Tingwell), learns that the hard way when Klove (Latham) kills him for the blood to resurrect Dracula. And soon Helen wants to “kiss” her brother and sister in laws. Dracula is no longer dust, full figured with fangs and hiss, ready to clamp that bite down on necks again. “There’ll be no morning for us.” Sandor told them, didn’t he?

I do like it that the Hammer Dracula series didn’t always have to adhere to the formula of Cushing against Lee and branched out to allow others to tackle the hero role against the villainous Dracula (whether Lee did or didn’t have dialogue, his intimidating presence often filling the frame, with bloodshot eyes and fiendish face or just holding a fixed calm as his command often was enough through mental control). I like that this film gave us more of Dracula’s castle, as Klove carried the initial suspicious and threatening presence before the Count is whole and back to menacing folks. And the use of icy water to paralyze and defeat Dracula through Sandor’s rifle (seemingly always on his person) is a fun gimmick. 

I always was interested when first watching these Hammer Draculas just how they’d bring back and once again kill Dracula. Long before slasher franchises, Hammer was creating ways to keep their own franchises going. And Kier, to me, was a blast as the forward, confrontational, blunt, and full-throated priest, not shy about letting other clergy and village folks know how their irrational fears and behavior were often idiotic and dumbfounded.