DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE (1968) Gotta love these Hammer titles! Despite a G rating (!) , a dumb plot, some unintentional hilarity at the end, and an obnoxiously noble hero in the form of Barry Andrews, I liked Dracula Has Risen From The Grave, mostly for Christopher Lee and an entertaining supporting cast. Dracula may be dead (we last saw him get pulled into an icy river), but his evil lives on, causing the local townsfolk to live in fear of...well, they don't really know. But the shadow of his castle of evil looms down upon the town once a day, and nobody likes that. So the visiting Monsignor (Rupert Davies) decides to head on up to the castle and perform an exorcism on it. Ironically, his arrival only serves to bring him back, because just when you think Dracula's down for the (ahem) count, the local priest (who showed the Monsignor the way to the castle) slips on some ice and bleeds into his mouth. Tip to aspiring vampire hunters: cut the goddamn head off, or something. So far as I can figure, the Monsignor lives in an interesting arrangement with Marion Mathie, who serves in an official capacity as his maid. Their relationship, in truth, is more like an apparently sexless marriage. (Somebody please tell me if I'm misinterpreting this, but the girl refers to him as "Uncle" and I noticed no reference to him and Anna being siblings) Anna's daughter (Veronica Carlson) is romancing a college boy (Andrews) who likes to spend some time back home here to, uh, "keep it real". That the boy's an atheist is one problem, but now they have Dracula to deal with. Dracula wants that daughter, and he'll enslave whoever it takes to get her. That priest (Ewan Hooper) becomes his first thrall, and his second is a sexy barmaid played by Barbara Ewing. Dracula's thralls in this movie are clearly unwilling slaves, quite the opposite of, say, that guy in Dracula: Prince Of Darkness, who has either been cheerfully serving Drac for a very long time, or has done this kind of work for other vampires before. Here, they always look absolutely terrified of the prospect of displeasing the mean ol' bastard. They're probably right to be scared - look how he treats his horses! Lee actually gets some lines in this one, and the Davies makes for an interesting sort-of hero, if a lousy dinner host. "There is no evil in a house of God!" he tells some of the frightened villagers. Wow, he's optimistic. Michael Ripper shows up as the college boy's dad Max, and he gets a lot of funny dialogue, and Mathies is wonderfully charming and likeable. It's the leads I didn't like so much; protagonist Andrews isn't introduced until about 30 minutes in, and all I could think of was Nicholas Clay's impossibly noble, and ultimately kind of annoying Lancelot in Excalibur. Carlson is very pretty, but also kind of bland as the girl. Like I said, the plot of this movie is pretty dumb. Dracula is seen reflected in a pool of water in one scene; there's a vampire no-no if I ever saw one, especially in a scene like this where the reflection isn't even accidental/incidental, it's part of the whole construction of the shot. While this movie did thankfully avoid the "false love triangle" of the girl, the boy, and the barmaid, it did NOT, however, avoid the most annoyingly obvious "Dracula is sexy" stuff in this series yet. And the stake in the heart doesn't kill him, for reasons never explained; I can only assume it's because its wielder had no faith, but this is not "corrected" on by the end of the film. I don't think it'd really be a spoiler to say that he's finally defeated at the end (by accident), and all I have to say is that the increasingly hilarious shots of him stumbling around in his death throes have to be seen to be believed. The Power Of God is demonstrated to be literally more powerful than the Power Of Satan when the boy manages usurp Dracula's control of the priest with the use of a cross. Should this kind of competition have been so literally demonstrated? I dunno. There's no way this movie would get a G today, what with its blood-drinking and face-kissing, dead bodies (who killed the girl found in the bell? Did I miss something?) and impromptu cremations, impalements, and a noble, unrepentant atheist as the hero. (Great scene where he tells that to the Monsignor, resulting in probably the best "I beg your pardon?" I've heard) Ah, remember the days when ratings were assigned to movies, instead of movies being tailored for their ratings? Okay, granted, both this and 2001 came out before I was born, but I do remember Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and that probably wouldn't get a G today either. Dracula Has Risen From The Grave has its gruesome moments, but it's pretty tame overall. And yet, I liked it, quite a bit. Maybe I should know better, but director Freddie Francis makes it all work. Maybe it's one of those times when I know that I shouldn't like one movie (like this) more than another (like the original)...or maybe I should quit stalling and give the original another look. (shrug) All in good time, all in good time. But not until I've seen the rest of the Hammer Dracula flicks. BACK TO THE D's BACK TO THE MAIN PAGE