Dracula 1972 A.D.

Dracula A.D. 1972

Released: 1972 (Duh!)

MPAA Rating: PG

Genre: Vampire

Nuts and Bolts: Dracula, Lord of the Vampires is resurrected in the year 1972. Now he wants to avenge himself upon the last living remnants of the Van Helsing family. Can Professor Larimar Van Helsing save his granddaughter Jessica from the Count in time?

Summary: We begin with a flashback to London of the late 19th century. It is the final battle between Professor Abraham Van Helsing and Count Dracula. The two struggle atop a runaway carriage, which then pitches itself into a nearby ravine. The wily Professor is relatively okay suffering only a few minor cuts. However, the good Count finds himself impaled through the heart by the spoke of a broken carriage wheel. Not willing to take any chances, Van Helsing shows just how much of a bad motherfucker he really is by leaning down hard on the broken wheel driving it deeply into Dracula’s chest destroying him. Note: This footage is actually taken from the climax of Taste the Blood of Dracula.

Flash forward to 1972. We meet a group of hippies who are groovin’ to a disco rock band known as the Stoneground at the house of a respected English citizen. Among the group is: Johnny Alucard, an occultist (Note the quirky spelling of his last name); Jessica Van Helsing, the great grand-daughter of Abraham Van Helsing; Joe Mitchell, Jessica’s boyfriend, and their friends Gaynor, Laura, Anna, Bob and Greg. The cops bust the party and the hippies are forced to relocate.

Johnny Alucard offers to show them a really good time and the stoners groove on over to this old abandoned church, dig? At this point, Johnny begins dressing up in black robes and performing a bizarre satanic black mass. The other kids are kind of spooked by it, but go along with the gag anyway. Johnny has Laura (Played by the heart-stopping Caroline Munro) as his first volunteer and he places her upon an alter. He begins shouting and chanting and swinging about chalices of blood which begins to pour all over Laura. (If it were me, I’d rather be pouring something ELSE on top of Laura…but hey, that’s just me.) As it is, the other kids get really freaked out by Johnny’s eccentric behavior and exit the church leaving Laura behind. What they don’t realize is that Johnny’s antics are part of an actual occult ritual and he uses Laura’s blood as the stepping-stone towards resurrecting Count Dracula.

Later the following day, Inspector Murray of Scotland Yard pays a call to the Van Helsing home. He questions Lawrence (Larimar) Van Helsing as well as Jessica. Jessica learns that Laura has been killed. Although she drops Johnny Alucard’s name to the police, she doesn’t reveal what actually happened the prior evening.

Ole Larry Van Helsing seems to be just as sharp as his grandfather and quickly deduces that Alucard spelled backwards is Dracula. (Humorously enough, he actually had to use a pad of paper and a pencil to figure this out; maybe he ain’t so sharp after all.)

Van Helsing is convinced that Dracula has returned from the grave and reports his findings to Inspector Murray. While all this is going on, Johnny is bringing Dracula more victims in the hopes that Dracula will turn him into a vampire as well. Dracula concedes, and Johnny becomes one of the true undead. Dracula learns of the existence of Jessica Van Helsing and orders Johnny to bring her to him. It is his intention to make Jessica his undead bride and thereby achieving his revenge against the Van Helsing family.

Johnny eventually captures Jessica and takes her to Dracula’s secret lair. But Lawrence is on the move and quickly finds Johnny’s Chelsea apartment. He keeps Johnny at bay with a small crucifix and the neonate vampire finds himself plunging not only into a shaft of sunlight but also into a bathtub filled with water. (In this mythos, running water can destroy a vampire just as effectively as sunlight) Bad enough that he falls into the tub, but his own flailing arm actually turns the water on! What an asshole!

Lawrence finds Dracula’s lair and discovers that the unconscious Jessica has yet to be turned into a vampire. He baits a trap for Dracula and waits for the vampire lord to return. Dracula eventually attacks outside the sanctuary. Right as Drac is ready to put the stink-tooth on ole Larry, Doctor Van Helsing douses him with a spray of Holy water. Dracula looses his balance and falls into a pit of wooden spikes that Larry had erected earlier. Just like his granddad, Larry isn’t content with merely watching Drac writhing around on the spikes. Nope, he has to grab a shovel and pound it into the vampire’s spine just to make sure the spikes sink in nice and deep. Dracula eventually dissolves into nothing and Jessica is rescued. (Yay! Happy ending!)

This movie follows Scars of Dracula and precedes Satanic Rites of Dracula.

Acting/Dialogue: The only dialogue that’s really poor in this is the barrage of 60s inspired hippie slang. Even the Scooby Doo gang aren’t THAT lame! Like always, Cushing and Lee delivers another command performance as two rival forces eternally battling for the sake of good versus evil. Drac doesn’t have a whole helluva lot to say, but when has he ever. The scene-stealer in this film though, as far as I’m concerned, would be Christopher Neame as Johnny Alucard. He certainly brings a lot of presence to his part and half the time you think the film is more about him than it is Dracula.

Gore: The gore is typical of most Hammer Horror films. We begin the festivities by seeing the Lord of all Vampires impaled on a wagon wheel. We also get to see a rather gruesome scene where Johnny pours blood all over Laura. And then there’s the final confrontation where ass-kicking Larry buries the shovel into Dracula’s spine.

Guilty Pleasures: Hammer films are known for their exploitation of women and this one is no exception. Stephanie Beacham (Jessica) is practically falling out of her shirt through most of the film, much to the delight of pre-teen movie watchers. Then there’s the equally vivacious and stunning Caroline Munro who is also not lacking in the cleavage department. It’s a shame they killed her off so early in the film. But what a way to go!

The Good: This cheesy flick has always been a personal favorite of mine. This is one of the last of the Hammer Horror Dracula films and represents the first of two movies set in the present day. Others probably hate it, but I thought it was a trip seeing Dracula running around 1970s London with weird hippie music playing in the background. It’s certainly a change of pace from the haunting tones of the other period films.

I thought the character of Johnny Alucard was very cool and it was amazing to watch the way he cajoled all of his friends into doing exactly what he wanted. There’s a funny scene with Johnny at the party in the beginning. Being the smarmy bastard that he is, he plays around with a priceless sculpture much to the angst of the society maven that owned the house. Just when you think he’s going to do the right thing and leave the artwork alone…SMASH, he dashes it upon the floor.

Dracula’s death scene was very nice indeed and it’s always interesting to watch the vampires when they begin to dissolve away. This is one of the better death-of-Dracula sequences to be found throughout the series.

Now, I realize that I probably stroke this movie way too much. Most fans of Hammer Horror seem to regard this as the redheaded bastard child of Hammer, but I for one find its campy scenes to be fun and entertaining. Where else can you find mini-skirts, go-go boots and vampires all in one flick?

The Bad: The opening party sequence was obviously done in order to plug the rock band known as the Stoneground. Hell, they even got their name in the credits! They’re not that good either, and truth to tell, had it not been for this film I probably would have never heard of them.

The only other thing that I really didn’t care for in this film was the death of Johnny Alucard. They spend a great deal of time endearing you to the character’s villainous ways, only to have him pave the way for his own destruction. I’ve never been a big fan of the ‘running water’ gag, and the way it is used here is mind-numbingly stupid. A real letdown.

Great Lines: Can't think of any right now. I'll update this later after I find some.

Overall Rating: 8 out of 10 severed heads.

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