DRACULA: PRINCE OF DARKNESS
Good thing they didn't call it "Drac's Back"

  All this time, I thought this was the second of the Hammer Dracula series, while thinking Brides Of Dracula was the third or fourth (which was in truth the second).  My mistake, but apparently not mine alone; this third movie is often referred to in retrospect as the true sequel to the first film, retaining its villain, though not its hero.  It was seven years before Hammer got Christopher Lee back to play Dracula; either because he didn't want to always be playing vampires, or because they couldn't afford his pricetag.

It's ten years after the first film (the climax of which is replayed at the beginning here), and nobody much likes going near that castle in the Carpathians, as you might imagine.  The dead are routinely staked, just in case, much to the objections of the reasonably-minded Father Sandor (Andrew "Quatermass" Kier), who understands the vampire menace to be extinguished.  Soon, four English tourists are dumped at a crossroads their coach is afraid to pass, and then they are picked up by a braver coach with no driver, which takes them to that castle, where Dracula's butler awaits.  (This guy gets such a good entrance - looking quite a bit like Lee himself in that first shot - that I was concerned that Dracula's own entrance might be a letdown.  It was certainly not.)  They think he's being hospitable, but he's really just planning to resurrect his evil master!  Damn butlers, always up to no good.

D:POD is a much slower-paced movie than its zippy predecessors, which alternately works for it and against it.  The moodier, gloomier proceedings are appreciated, but they drag on a little too long for a while without a payoff.  Once Drac returns (in a wonderfully macabre ritual, oft-imitated since), however, things perk up considerably, right up until the killer ending.

Lee is back, and he looks great, cape flaring, imposing as hell.  He also seems a lot more comfortable here with the plastic fangs; I can only assume that plastic-fang technology had progressed by leaps and bounds in those seven years.  Unfortunately, he doesn't, at least that I can remember, get any actual dialogue, which is a shame because his voice is his most powerful tool as an actor. (forgive me if my memory's hazy on bits of this film - I had to watch it in three sittings on three nights because I kept getting interrupted)  It's been said that he simply thought that the dialogue written for him was terrible and he refused to speak it; I dunno, Lee can make even bad dialogue sound great just because he's got such a great voice.  As it is, he grunts a lot (kinda like Christopher Walken in Sleepy Hollow), which limits his expressiveness.  In the end, he gets probably about as much screen time as in the first film, but since he doesn't show up until the movie's half over, it seems like more because it's all in the second half.

Peter Cushing wouldn't be on board for this one, but in his vampire-staking place (never mind that he doesn't actually stake any vampires here) is Andrew Kier, an inspired choice.  Right before his Quatermass movie (who else out there for years thought it was "QuaRtermass"?  Raise your hand!  C'mon, I know I'm not the only one!)  Sandor is less the clever and kindly investigator that Cushing's Van Helsing was; with a booming voice that made me think he was Leo McKern before he got close to the camera, he's a more impassioned hero, as well-rooted in logic but with that extra fire of self-righteousness you can only get from the clergy.  The rest of the cast hardly registers at all, although the butler has some good moments ("My master died without issue, sir...in the accepted sense of the term.").

Despite having a hell of a lot going for it, the first Hammer Dracula film didn't quite win me over (I'm well aware that I'm quite alone in the universe in this regard - still waiting to see some hands up on that Quatermass issue), and most of it was due to its clumsy handling of, for lack of a better word, vampirology.  (Am I the first person to use this word?  Can I add this to my list of made-up words, can I can I can I?  Ah, who am I kidding.)  D:POD mostly handles this quite a bit better, though I think the setup is a bit of a cheat.  Oh, I'm glad that Lee is back as Dracula, since he's such a good Dracula, but if you can't annihilate a vampire right out of existence with sunlight, just what CAN you annihilate it with?  At what point can you sit back, crack open a beer, and relax secure in the knowledge that the pesky vampire that's been plaguing you is gone forever and he's not coming back?  But Lee's back (silent, but back), and that's good news.

D:POD is also one of the very few vampire movies in which the man-vs.-vampire climax is not capped off with sunlight. (I don't think I've ever seen what happens during this ending in a film before.  I saw it once on that silly Ghostbusters cartoon, years ago, but never in a film.)  Additionally, I think this is the first cinematic instance (that I know of) of cauterization/burning the affected area to prevent a person from turning into a vampire.

There are many who believe this is a pretty shaky entry in the series, but some who consider this film to be a notch above the original Hammer Dracula film (yes, I think calling it "The Hammer Dracula" is a perfectly suitable substitute for Horror Of Dracula to spare the European contingent), and I'd agree.  I still like Brides the best, though, and I KNOW I'm alone on that one.  Also known as The Bloody Scream Of Dracula, Dracula 3, Disciple Of Dracula, and Revenge Of Dracula.  

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