SCARS OF DRACULA (1970) Two sequels in one year! Well, that's better. Taste The Blood Of Dracula sucked, but Scars Of Dracula (released the same year!) is, if not quite a return to form, then at least a genuinely enjoyable Dracula movie which actually gives Christopher Lee something to do, and gives us a couple of protagonists we can root for. Scars Of Dracula does not start particularly well, with Dracula's re-re-re-re-resurrection facilitated in the lamest manner yet (a bat drools blood on Drac's remains), perhaps not inappropriate considering the silly way he was dispatched in the last movie. Wasting no time, he acquires a thrall (Patrick Troughton) for himself, who's got these two huge, shaggy eyebrows that look like dead squirrels stapled to his forehead. Anyway, it's not long before the fang-punctured remains of comely young maidens of virtue true start piling up, so the local villagers (led by inkeeper Michael Ripper) try burning down his castle. Since it's made of stone, they don't succeed. Then we get to meet Paul (Christopher Matthews) and a lass whose name I didn't catch, a young couple who don't exactly have her dad's blessings. In one scene, caught just barely after the act, she hilariously sells him out to dad, claiming he tried to rape her. At first I thought that was kind of horrible, but soon it's made clear that this is not the kind of relationship where what daddy thinks is ever going to matter, and all this is part of their playful understanding. Deprived of a place to stay now that dad's home, Paul heads out to the village to seek shelter at the inn, but is turned away by the grumpy inkeeper. Where to next? Dracula's castle, of course. Once Paul goes missing, the movie surprisingly switches protagonists to Dennis Waterman, who plays an aggressive, no-nonsense hero despite his boyish looks. Ripper, who you might remember from both Dracula Has Risen From The Grave and Taste The Blood Of Dracula, is here plays a different character, this time something of a gloomy Gus and nowhere near as fun his role in DHRFTG. Lee for once actually gets the opportunity to, well, star, this movie letting him be more chatty than usual as he plays host to his "guests". Scars Of Dracula also makes much better use of Dracula's castle than ever before, complete with a room hollowed out in a cliff face which can only be accessed on the wings of a bat, or by climbing down to it. Scars Of Dracula is, to my knowledge, the only one of the Hammer Dracula movies to get an R rating, with its church-massacres, bloody stabbings (have I ever seen a Dracula stab somebody to death before?), brandings, bare bottoms, and hard drug use (just kidding). Extra bonus: lots of cleavage. This sequel has its share of flaws, most glaring being the bat-attacks, always a weak spot in vampire movies, which is why, I suppose, they've become so unfashionable in recent years. Rubber bats bounced around on strings, basically. And since I couldn't let the first movie pass without comment on the notion of Dracula sleeping in a room with a window, I can't let this movie get away with it either. I enjoyed Scars Of Dracula quite a bit, and I'm a little surprised at that considering that it's something of a "lost" Hammer Dracula movie, the one of the eight which I never seem to hear anything about and never saw around until recently. Good ending too, unlike that last movie, gah! Anthony Hinds scripts again; directed by Quatermass And The Pit director Roy Ward Baker. Here's something I'm suddenly wondering. Can you chase off a vampire with an INVERTED cross? BACK TO THE S's BACK TO THE MAIN PAGE