Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966)

Review

Two English brothers and their wives are travelling through a vaguely 19th Century Eastern European country and take refuge one night at a local tavern. Alan and Helen are the older couple; Alan is the height of respectability while Helen is constantly disapproving of everything. The younger hipper couple, Charles and Diana (da frack!!!), are clearly going to be the characters the movie hinges on. They meet the charismatic and down to earth Father Sandor, who eventually warns them not to visit Castle Dracula, which of course our couples will ignore, as you do.

Due to a carriage accident the English travellers are left stranded next to the road leading to Karlsbad, but on the bright side a driverless carriage arrives to transport them to the local Castle, no prizes for guessing whose castle it is. Naturally Helen is all dire warnings but no one else seems to have a problem with driverless carriages, rooms being made ready for the night, and a bit of a feed laid on. Eventually Klove, a man servant, appears and apparently the English develop a she'll be right attitude. This naturally doesn't work out very well as both Alan and Helen fall prey to Klove and Count Dracula himself. Charles and Diana escape and find sanctuary in Father Sandor's monastery, but the battle against the Count is only just beginning!

Director Terence Fisher kicks off his movie with a quick recap of the resolution to 1957's Dracula which saw Peter Cushing once again dispatch the Count via standard vampire defeating methods, i.e. daylight and crucifixes. In one of those "gee technology has changed" moments Fisher is forced to frame the earlier movie's ultimate scene as the new widescreen wasn't a staple of movie making back in 1957. Anyways still a cool scene with Cushing bounding down a long table to finally leap and pull down some heavy drapes, with Dracula subsequently being reduced to ashes in the wind, which blows in from … somewhere!

In the present, shut up movie wise, we first meet up with Father Sandor, a notable entry in the "I kick arse for the Lord" pantheon. Sandor is first seen dealing with the superstitions of local villagers, and later we learn he is an expert on vampirism. A surprisingly strong character that underlines the eternal battle between church and evil, albeit with a heavy calibre rifle rather than prayer. I was mightily impressed with Sandor, unfortunately there isn't a sequel with the good Father once again arming up to do battle with the forces of chaos.

We next get a general introduction to the victims for the evening, and unfortunately they are so well defined that we already know who is going to make it to the final credits and who is going to fall by the wayside. Charles and Diana are clearly the wave of the future while the rather stuffy Alan and the whinging Helen are grist for the mill, have no idea what that means to be honest. The first shock comes at the viewer with Alan's death, oops spoiler, which is particularly nasty and must have been well past shocking for the audience back in 1966. Out of interest the season two episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer … also fetched a similar plot device, though the makers of Buffy pulled up short from the out and out gore that Director Fisher deemed appropriate for his scene. Which just goes to show some of the older movies and television shows weren't above shocking their intended audience. Anyways Alan's demise allows Dracula to resurrect in full vampire glory and we have our movie ready to rock, albeit with half the running time already used up.

Christopher Lee (Count Dracula) once again gives a command performance in the role and underlines the fact that he is the best ever Count. While Lee doesn't have any lines he gets to hiss and snarl with the best of them and brings across a high degree of menace, all in the facial expression especially the eyes. Unfortunately Peter Cushing is restricted to the preview scene and doesn't take any further part in Price of Darkness. The other Hammer stalwart of note in the line-up is Barbara Shelley (Diana), who gets to do a lot of screaming and heaving breast, this is after all a Hammer movie and women pretty much had fixed roles of being either over ripe villains or damsels in distress waiting to be rescued.

Speaking of heaving breasts and the like there's a hint of the lesbian going down in Prince of Darkness, which again is a Hammer trade mark. In one scene vampire Helen confronts Diana and tells her she doesn't need Charles, in pretty much nudge nudge wink wink fashion. I'm not entirely sure if this aspect of Hammer movies was Studio policy or simply just happened in some weird infestation, but it remains interesting nevertheless. Later movies would really ramp this up, as Hammer once again sort to shock the moral crusaders that aligned against them.

For modern audiences the major surprise is going to be the lack of special effects, and clearly the complete absence of CGI. Lee's Dracula is far more physical than paranormal and doesn't have the ability to change shape or become a mist or any of the other various transformations modern vampires can enjoy. On the bright side he doesn't sparkle in the sunshine, is a predator without feeling, and incorporates evil. They just don't make them like they used to, fuck you paranormal romance!

On the topic of vampire mythology there's some cool aspects to this movie. Vampires don't like crosses and decay at an accelerated rate if exposed to sunlight, but writer Jimmy Sangster goes one step beyond and also indicates they can't cross running water and in fact will drown if they fall into said water. While some Reviewers have remarked that Dracula's despatch in this movie through an underground stream is yet another example of movies developing new ways to kill vampires they should do their research, the whole running water idea was around a long time before Prince of Darkness was conceived. It's one of those weird facets of vampire lore that has fallen out of favour over the decades but which proved to be a crucial plot device prior to Hollywood tinkering.

While the old Hammer movies aren't to everyone's liking there's no denying that the Studio almost single handily kept the horror movie to the forefront through some lean years for the genre. Prince of Darkness retains the Studio's Gothic traditions, sexes it up from normal horror fare, and even adds some surprising gore. For true horror aficionados this movie is a must see release, Christopher Lee is at his aristocratic best in the role of the Count, and the storyline is an example of doing something pretty unique with the source material. I had a good time watching this movie, though my wife was wondering just what the hell I was watching, full recommendation kids, this is what a vampire movie should seek to do.