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Dracula - Prince Of Darkness [1965]


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Hammer's first Dracula sequel
Review date: 2008-10-27 Rating: 6 out of 10

Two English couples holidaying in Transylvania fall foul of the mysterious count...'Dracula:Prince of darkness' isn't a bad film, it just lacks some of the 'gore and boobs' of the following sequels. It's certainly atmospheric, and the cast is excellent: Lee of course is good as Dracula, though his appearances are relatively few, Andrew Keir memorable as the Monsignor (witness the scene where he warms his backside by the inn fire!),Philip Lathom is creepy as Dracula's butler, Klove,and Francis Matthews is well cast as the hero;Thorley Walters makes a suitably gormless appearance as a fly eating madman, while Barbara Shelley transforms herself from a complaining old bat into one hot fangfaced fox indeed after falling victim to ol'red eyes.
I love the scene where the couples are abandoned in the middle of the forest, overlooking Dracula's castle, and then mysteriously led there by a riderless carriage; and the scene where they encounter the empty castle is very creepy indeed. I find the first half of the film more satisfying than the latter, but the scene where Dracula is killed on the ice is quite clever although he could have put up more of a struggle before succumbying to the icy waters.
Overall,although this film isn't really scary or as dramatic as,say,'Taste the blood of Dracula' or 'Scars of Dracula', it's still one of my favourite horror films and I was glad to purchase it.

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Reviews


THE LETHAL COUNT IS BACK
Review date: 2008-10-15 Rating: 10 out of 10

Dracula, prince of darkness was directed by Terence Fisher, who had guided Christopher Lee through his first performance as the blood-thirsty count. Yhis film was the first NOT to feature Dracula's nemesis Van Helsing(played by Peter Cushing). Instead vamoire-fighting expertise was supplied by Andrew Kier in the role of Father Shandor. Like Van Helsing, Shandor despises blind superstition, but recognizes the forces of evil and respects their power. Dracula, Prince of Darkness, is in many ways a different sort of film from Hammer's, Horror of Dracula. Rather than jumping right into the expected vampiric activities, this film, takes its time introducing and developing its new characters before the revival of Dracula. Along with Shandor, the film's featured characters are two vacationing British British couples, newly-weds, Charles and Diana(Francis Mathews and Suzan Farmer) along with Charles' elder brther, Alan and his wife Helen(Charles Tingwell and Barbara Shelly). Despite Shandor's warnings, the holiday-quartet, find themselves, stranded near Castle Dracula at night. A driver-less coach appears and on boarding it, they find that they are unable to control the horses, who bring them directly to the castle, where they encounter, Klove(Philip Latham), an eerie "servant" of Count Dracula. Once Dracula is introduced, the pace of the film picks up, and a number of thrilling vampiric encounters ensue. While much of this footage is similar to material in Horror of Dracula, variations and some novel ideas do crop up. Even Dracula himself, is is a bit different. Most obviously the lining of his cloak has been changed from black to red. The most interesting of the film's new material is drawn from Bram Stoker's original,'Dracula', novel. Thorley Walters plays an insect-eating character named Peter, who is obviously based on the novel's Renfield. And Dracula summons Diana to vampirism by baring his chest, cutting himself with his fingernail, and drawing the girl to him, to taste the wound: a sequence lifted almost exactly from the original work.. The film also uses Stoker's premise that a vampire cannot cross a threshold uninvited, and coverts Stoker's idea that a vampire cannot cross running water into the premise that running water is fatal to the vampire.

one of the most effective Dracula movies ever made!!!
Review date: 2008-06-18 Rating: 10 out of 10

on my first viewing i have found this film to be surprisingly effective and is by far one of the best Drac films that i have ever seen.
Christopher Lee gives a stunning performance...and the fact that he has absolutly no dialogue at all in this film adds to its enjoyment and makes it a very unsettling experience which is why i love it so much.
i found it to be better than the original Hammer film and the best one hammer ever did.
Christopher Lee is a fanGtastic actor,long may he reign in the film industry.

Not one of Fisher's best
Review date: 2008-04-15 Rating: 6 out of 10

Dracula, Prince of Darkness is these days thought of as one of the quintessential Hammer Horrors, probably due to the fact that it has been shown on UK TV more than just about any other Hammer film. However, Terence Fisher's third movie in the Dracula series isn't actually all that great a film, with a meandering pace, boring lead characters, and a surprising lack of genuine scares or gore. The film picks up where 1958's Horror of Dracula left off, with the Count (Christopher Lee) coming to an end at the hands of Dr Van Helsing (Peter Cushing, who doesn't appear in the main body of the film, to its detriment). Unfortunately, the subsequent story isn't nearly as compelling as that of the earlier films, as we spend far too much time waiting around for a group of English tourists to encounter the blood-sucking bad guy, a device used much more successfully in Don Sharp's The Kiss of the Vampire (1963). Lee's return to the role after seven years isn't as disappointing as some writers would have you believe (personally, I like the fact that he doesn't speak in this movie, as his dialogue in the Dracula movies that came after this one always stunk), but the film doesn't really begin until halfway through, when he's resurrected, and that scene is the high point of the film, with nothing as exciting happening again. There are some other good scenes (such as the staking of Barbara Shelley's vampire woman), but they are few and far between, and the climax is a pale shadow of those in Fisher's previous two vampire movies, with Dracula drowning in the apparently `running' (but in fact plainly stagnant) waters of his castle moat. Andrew Keir (as a gun-toting monk) and Philip Latham (as Dracula's servant) have some good lines and deliver them well, but the bulk of the dialogue is deadly dull. In all, Dracula, Prince of Darkness is an overrated movie, and certainly one of Fisher's weaker Hammer Horror efforts.

A good old-fashioned horror yarn
Review date: 2007-12-27 Rating: 6 out of 10

This wouldn't have won any Oscars but it's what a lot of punters want - a standard Dracula film. The Count doesn't actually appear until the 46th minute (it's a 86 minute movie).

In this tale, Dracula, aided by his faithful servant, sets about bumping off a group of naive English tourists who are travelling through the Carpathian Mountains. Not a good advert for the Romanian tourist board, but all the Dracula ingredients are here - the castle, stagecoaches, superstitious locals, stakes, crosses, garlic etc.

Dracula gets quite brave in this one as he undertakes a daring raid on a local monastery in his pursuit of one of the tourists - Suzan Farmer (so who can blame him?)

This is a Hammer offering so close the blinds, turn the lights out, put the phone off the hook and enjoy.

Product Details/Specifications


Actor(s):
Andrew Keir
Suzan Farmer
Christopher Lee
Barbara Shelley
Francis Matthews

Creators:
Christopher Lee (Primary Contributor)
Andrew Keir (Primary Contributor)

Director(s):

Recording label: Optimum Home Entertainment
Manufacturer: Optimum Home Entertainment
EAN: 5060034576877
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 1
Format: Anamorphic, PAL,
Release date: 2006-10-23
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Audience rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
Region code: 2
Running time: 86 minutes
Theatrical release date: 1965
Language: English (Original Language)

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