Christopher Lee Peter Cushing in a Dracula Film
Alan Gibson, director of Dracula A.D. 1972, made the Hammer Studios followup, The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973). From his IMDB page he was mainly a TV director. He died when he was forty-nine, made the two Dracula films in his mid-thirties. I mention these facts about a director you've likely never heard of because in a career spanning 1964 to 1987, he worked steadily on numerous TV and feature film projects, no doubt dedicated to his career as a reliable professional. He was Ingrid Bergman's last director; the TV movie A Woman Called Golda.
I don't remember anything about Dracula A.D. 1972 but it must've been an attempt to relocate the venerable monster from cobwebs and vaults deep beneath castles in nineteenth or early twentieth century settings to vibrant metropolitan 1970s London. Never mind Dracula's anachronistic personality in such a (familiar to us) setting. Once we've reached The Satanic Rites of Dracula, taking place, I guess, in 1973, the Transylvanian aristocrat, dating back to the fifteenth century, has adapted to the modern big business world.
Head of a corporation with an office on a lofty floor in a modern London building shown in one striking Alan Gibson shot as a sharp triangle disappearing high above into fog, Dracula, using an alias, is behind the development of a new strain of bubonic plague. Though it may seem he's entered the biowarfare business, he's actually motivated by revenge towards the entire human race, planning to unleash a plague causing flesh to rot off the body in a short period. He's aided by a group of well-connected Satan-worshipping idiots in government and the military. They have no clue about the extent of their patron's plan.
Luckily, the unstoppable Van Helsing (Peter Cushing, just four years before ordering the destruction of Alderaan in Star Wars) penetrates the conspiracy through his past friendship with Professor Keeley (Freddie Jones, Thufir Hawat in David Lynch's Dune), creator of the plague virus.
Dracula (Christopher Lee), no matter what he's calling himself, is hard to resist. Typical of past habits, Dracula keeps a half dozen or so vampire women on hand. He bites the neck of an intelligence agency investigator's secretary.
When Lee goes in to take another victim to Undead Land, he mesmerizes with his eyes, bares his teeth, lips parallel to each other, mouth held very still. The actor has had many opportunities to perfect this move--Lee does it better than anyone. He also maintains an eerie stillness, rarely losing his temper. When he gets emotional it comes out as shouted rage, blistering contempt, and animus cultivated over centuries of coming up with plans that get thwarted, often by a Van Helsing. When you get right down to it, Dracula's a loser.
When I watched this movie a week ago I found it to be less than adequate; silly in spots, Dracula's demise brought about in an absurd way, almost like watching a low IQ man entangling himself in something he should know will disable him long enough for Van Helsing to sweep in and stake his heart. What with his good night vision, can't Dracula see that he's walking into a hawthorn bush? He doesn't know that hawthorn is bad for his constitution? That, as with garlic, he's allergic?
Van Helsing stakes him good; time lapse images of the former CEO's rapid decay show a muddy human shape turning to dust. He will, of course, return in some guise, adapted again by another director, such as John Badham in his super-stylish Dracula, with Frank Langella and an exceptionally luscious Kate Nelligan.
The character will never go away. The book is always in print, for one thing. Modern readers continue to page through a novel written as a series of letters, a popular style in the nineteenth century, but quaint now. Dracula, whether the personification of evil or just some bloodsucking fiend to avoid like shark-infested waters, has the romantic appeal of a person doomed to everlasting life, thus, subject to all of the joys and sorrows of existence, all the fucking time. To "live," Dracula and those he corrupts into his fold, must feed on blood, life's essence symbolized by the Son of God as wine. Son of Satan, or at least Son of Darkness, Dracula takes Jesus' metaphor, "This is my blood," literally, drinking forever the life essence of God's premier creation, humankind.
Due to the vividness of this strange character, plus the religious connotations, Dracula will always possess a magnetic appeal.
When Van Helsing finally mounts the tower and meets with the man pretending he's not Dracula, Christopher Lee uses a different, higher voice at first, acting the part of a CEO. He has his desk lamp aimed at his visitor, who carries in his jacket's inside pocket a small single-shot gun with a silver bullet. Dracula knows this is Van Helsing but isn't sure if Van Helsing knows the truth yet. Van Helsing takes out his gun, fires, but his shot goes astray. Two of Dracula's musclemen manhandle Van Helsing away to the country estate where the Satanic rites have occurred and the vampire stores his women.
A painting on the wall of CEO Dracula's office struck my eye. It shows a white blob of paint smeared over violently by a black blob. It looks like something Dracula may have painted during one of his moments of boredom, an image depicting his hatred of light, of goodness, of hope, of anything positive in this world.
The plague virus comes into play in the climax. Three of the men duped by Dracula get confronted with the truth of what their master has been up to. The vampire mind controls one of the men to shatter the vial containing the plague--it gets onto his skin. He dies maybe as horribly as anyone has ever died for several minutes. The house catches on fire during Van Helsing's ensuing fight with Eastern Europe's Prince of Darkness. As the plague victim's skin rots, layer upon deeper layer flaking away like browned burning paper, Dracula, backgrounded by flames, pronounces his doom upon humanity. Van Helsing escapes, catches a glimpse of the plague victim writhing about still but now on fire, too. Dracula chases Van Helsing into the woods. The hawthorn bush incident happens.
An entertaining movie, though in spots it doesn't make much sense. Cushing and Lee are good. As Van Helsing's granddaughter, Joanna Lumley (hilarious in the British comedy, Absolutely Fabulous) only twenty-seven at the time, is nice to see. She has a good scene getting menaced by Dracula's girlfriends.
The film has familiar Dracula scenes (crypt settings so familiar by now) but the modern elements--government officials belonging to a Satanic cult, an evil CEO, intelligence operatives, menacing henchmen on motorcycles--add realism as we see an old character in the context of a slick, confident Western world, nevertheless riddled with corruption. In London, where a cretin like Boris Johnson will be the next prime minister, the real world of badly run institutions driven by greed and a need to maintain dominance over the powerless, doesn't seem far off from a twisted depiction of the 1970s modern London we see in The Satanic Rites of Dracula.
Vic Neptune
Alan Gibson, director of Dracula A.D. 1972, made the Hammer Studios followup, The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973). From his IMDB page he was mainly a TV director. He died when he was forty-nine, made the two Dracula films in his mid-thirties. I mention these facts about a director you've likely never heard of because in a career spanning 1964 to 1987, he worked steadily on numerous TV and feature film projects, no doubt dedicated to his career as a reliable professional. He was Ingrid Bergman's last director; the TV movie A Woman Called Golda.
I don't remember anything about Dracula A.D. 1972 but it must've been an attempt to relocate the venerable monster from cobwebs and vaults deep beneath castles in nineteenth or early twentieth century settings to vibrant metropolitan 1970s London. Never mind Dracula's anachronistic personality in such a (familiar to us) setting. Once we've reached The Satanic Rites of Dracula, taking place, I guess, in 1973, the Transylvanian aristocrat, dating back to the fifteenth century, has adapted to the modern big business world.
Head of a corporation with an office on a lofty floor in a modern London building shown in one striking Alan Gibson shot as a sharp triangle disappearing high above into fog, Dracula, using an alias, is behind the development of a new strain of bubonic plague. Though it may seem he's entered the biowarfare business, he's actually motivated by revenge towards the entire human race, planning to unleash a plague causing flesh to rot off the body in a short period. He's aided by a group of well-connected Satan-worshipping idiots in government and the military. They have no clue about the extent of their patron's plan.
Luckily, the unstoppable Van Helsing (Peter Cushing, just four years before ordering the destruction of Alderaan in Star Wars) penetrates the conspiracy through his past friendship with Professor Keeley (Freddie Jones, Thufir Hawat in David Lynch's Dune), creator of the plague virus.
Dracula (Christopher Lee), no matter what he's calling himself, is hard to resist. Typical of past habits, Dracula keeps a half dozen or so vampire women on hand. He bites the neck of an intelligence agency investigator's secretary.
When Lee goes in to take another victim to Undead Land, he mesmerizes with his eyes, bares his teeth, lips parallel to each other, mouth held very still. The actor has had many opportunities to perfect this move--Lee does it better than anyone. He also maintains an eerie stillness, rarely losing his temper. When he gets emotional it comes out as shouted rage, blistering contempt, and animus cultivated over centuries of coming up with plans that get thwarted, often by a Van Helsing. When you get right down to it, Dracula's a loser.
When I watched this movie a week ago I found it to be less than adequate; silly in spots, Dracula's demise brought about in an absurd way, almost like watching a low IQ man entangling himself in something he should know will disable him long enough for Van Helsing to sweep in and stake his heart. What with his good night vision, can't Dracula see that he's walking into a hawthorn bush? He doesn't know that hawthorn is bad for his constitution? That, as with garlic, he's allergic?
Van Helsing stakes him good; time lapse images of the former CEO's rapid decay show a muddy human shape turning to dust. He will, of course, return in some guise, adapted again by another director, such as John Badham in his super-stylish Dracula, with Frank Langella and an exceptionally luscious Kate Nelligan.
The character will never go away. The book is always in print, for one thing. Modern readers continue to page through a novel written as a series of letters, a popular style in the nineteenth century, but quaint now. Dracula, whether the personification of evil or just some bloodsucking fiend to avoid like shark-infested waters, has the romantic appeal of a person doomed to everlasting life, thus, subject to all of the joys and sorrows of existence, all the fucking time. To "live," Dracula and those he corrupts into his fold, must feed on blood, life's essence symbolized by the Son of God as wine. Son of Satan, or at least Son of Darkness, Dracula takes Jesus' metaphor, "This is my blood," literally, drinking forever the life essence of God's premier creation, humankind.
Due to the vividness of this strange character, plus the religious connotations, Dracula will always possess a magnetic appeal.
When Van Helsing finally mounts the tower and meets with the man pretending he's not Dracula, Christopher Lee uses a different, higher voice at first, acting the part of a CEO. He has his desk lamp aimed at his visitor, who carries in his jacket's inside pocket a small single-shot gun with a silver bullet. Dracula knows this is Van Helsing but isn't sure if Van Helsing knows the truth yet. Van Helsing takes out his gun, fires, but his shot goes astray. Two of Dracula's musclemen manhandle Van Helsing away to the country estate where the Satanic rites have occurred and the vampire stores his women.
A painting on the wall of CEO Dracula's office struck my eye. It shows a white blob of paint smeared over violently by a black blob. It looks like something Dracula may have painted during one of his moments of boredom, an image depicting his hatred of light, of goodness, of hope, of anything positive in this world.
The plague virus comes into play in the climax. Three of the men duped by Dracula get confronted with the truth of what their master has been up to. The vampire mind controls one of the men to shatter the vial containing the plague--it gets onto his skin. He dies maybe as horribly as anyone has ever died for several minutes. The house catches on fire during Van Helsing's ensuing fight with Eastern Europe's Prince of Darkness. As the plague victim's skin rots, layer upon deeper layer flaking away like browned burning paper, Dracula, backgrounded by flames, pronounces his doom upon humanity. Van Helsing escapes, catches a glimpse of the plague victim writhing about still but now on fire, too. Dracula chases Van Helsing into the woods. The hawthorn bush incident happens.
An entertaining movie, though in spots it doesn't make much sense. Cushing and Lee are good. As Van Helsing's granddaughter, Joanna Lumley (hilarious in the British comedy, Absolutely Fabulous) only twenty-seven at the time, is nice to see. She has a good scene getting menaced by Dracula's girlfriends.
The film has familiar Dracula scenes (crypt settings so familiar by now) but the modern elements--government officials belonging to a Satanic cult, an evil CEO, intelligence operatives, menacing henchmen on motorcycles--add realism as we see an old character in the context of a slick, confident Western world, nevertheless riddled with corruption. In London, where a cretin like Boris Johnson will be the next prime minister, the real world of badly run institutions driven by greed and a need to maintain dominance over the powerless, doesn't seem far off from a twisted depiction of the 1970s modern London we see in The Satanic Rites of Dracula.
Vic Neptune
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