HORROR OF DRACULA
Alas, a letdown

(Before I catch any more shit for this - yes, I'm going to continue referring to this film by its North American title instead of the European one [simply Dracula].  It's been a bit of a policy of mine to refer to films only by the title under which I watched it, for sometimes a different title means a different cut of the film)

I'd been looking forward to seeing this movie for quite some time; I'd had trouble finding a copy until last week.  Unfortunately, this first film in the series of Hammer Dracula flicks is a disappointment, and I find myself preferring Brides Of Dracula, even though that one's capped off with the all-time lamest way to kill a vampire.

Based of course on Bram Stoker's novel (with any number of tweaks), Terence Fisher's Horror Of Dracula features Peter Cushing as Dr. Van Helsing, vampire-hunter extraordinaire, who follows his friend Jonathan Harker (John Van Eyssen) to Dracula's Swiss (!) castle after Harker fails to return.  Harker has, natch, fallen prey to Dracula and one of his female thralls, and it is up to Van Helsing to save Harker's loved ones before Drac decides to put the bite on them too.

Christopher Lee (yes, I know it's Christopher Lee this time) plays Drac, although you'd never know it because he only gets about three minutes of screen time.  Besides, I've rarely seen anyone look so uncomfortable with plastic fangs, although to be fair it's my understanding that the idea of presenting a vampire as having big fangs was a new one at the time.  There's a LOT of potential for some grand villainy with a Dracula played by Lee, but it just isn't here; he only gets a very small handful of lines, none of them carry the least bit of menace, and like I said he's only here for a few minutes anyway.  I've nothing against a villain that's kept away from center stage, but this is too much.  I mean, not enough.

There is of course the requisite scene which lays down this particular film's rules of just how a vampire lives and dies; one problem is that the film fails to live by these rules.  It's well established that vampires are killed by sunlight; so why would Dracula and his thrall sleep in OPEN coffins (well, coffin-like beds) in a basement which is very much well-lit by the daylight outside?  Gimme a break.  Then, given the choice between these two blood-sucking fiends to stake in the heart, which would you pick to nail first?  Not this guy, he goes for the thrall, giving Drac plenty of time to get up and leave the room for no reason other than to make a dramatic re-entrance. (which isn't very dramatic)

There's a cute kid here, serving mostly to annoy, but Jimmy Sangster's script mostly delivers the goods in between nonsense lines like "Whatever his motives, you can be sure he had a good reason."  Dracula is eroticized here like he hadn't been before, and I know, it's just me, but forcing eroticism into vampires is to my mind the number-one worst mistake filmmakers and writers ever made with the subject. (post-review note: it has been pointed out to me [and I was a fool to have failed to mention it] that indeed sexuality was a prime driver in Stoker's novel, and certainly in Le Fanu's "Carmilla".  Then let me add that the BEST idea vampire writers - that is, those who write about vampires, not writers who ARE vampires - ever put into practice was to cut out that eroticism like a tumor.)  And just try to put yourself in a vampire's shoes for a minute; after seeing what the film establishes are the effects of both crosses and sunlight on vampires, if caught between a sunbeam and a guy with a cross, I don't know about you but I'd take my chances with the cross.  Not here.

I don't mean to suggest that Horror Of Dracula is a bad movie, it isn't; Cushing is at the top of his game, playing the kind of character I have always thought he was best at, balancing fearlessness and enough wisdom and kindness that you'll wish he was your personal physician.  Everything looks lovely, the music by James Bernard is sweeping and effective, and everything moves at a fast enough pace that the absurd plot might be easier to ignore for some.

Many people consider this to be the greatest vampire movie of all time.  Obviously, I do not.  Maybe it'll grow on me in a few years when I give it another look.  But until that day, I can't really get behind a movie with a plot this silly and a villain whose role is reduced to a couple of walk-ons.  On to Dracula: Prince Of Darkness...

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