This time the innocents are a group of English tourists--brothers Charles (Francis Matthews, speaking with a Cary Grant lilt) and Alan (Charles Tingwell) and their wives Diana (Suzan Farmer) and Helen (Hammer regular Barbara Shelley)--vacationing in the Carpathian Mountains. Dumped in the woods by a terrified coachman just before darkness falls, they are taken to Dracula's castle in a driverless carriage and take refuge in the seemingly empty yet oddly kept up place, despite the warnings of travelling priest Father Sandor (Andrew Keir in holy monk warrior garb) and the ominous arrival of the castle's sole living occupant, Klove (Philip Latham), servant to long-dead master. Klove delivers the film's best line to his guests, who enquire about the Dracula legacy: "My master died without issue, sir, in the accepted sense of the term." (Curiously, Klove is nowhere to be seen in the original The Horror of Dracula). He's enough to put you off the main course, and it does exactly that to Helen, the only member of the party with sense enough to want out of there.
There's nothing particularly threatening in the atmosphere of these early scenes. An earlier stop in the local rustic tavern is almost cheery (the dire warnings of Sandor notwithstanding) and though it's a little odd to find the castle awaiting their arrival with a table set and their luggage set out in upstairs guest rooms, it's a bright, colorful, well-lit place. Fisher adds in the eeriness slowly, mostly through the presence of Klove and his gangly appearance, slightly off-kilter carriage, and perpetual dour expression. It's with the shadows of night that things start to get really creepy.
The film's most memorable set piece is the resurrection of Dracula, who is literally a pile of ashes brought back to corporeal form by a gush of human blood waterfalling into his crypt from a human sacrifice. Klove performs the act with the care and deliberation of a religious ritual, giving an already gruesome scene a terrible gravity. One of Sangster's defining contributions to the Hammer horrors was his creative twists on the usual conventions and this startling rebirth is one of his best, an unholy baptism in blood. Les Bowie, the film's special effects wizard, provides Hammer with one of the most evocative effects in the studio's history. As the blood and ash bubble up into primordial life, the vaguely humanoid flesh growing in front of our eyes, slowly taking human form from the inside out in a series of lap dissolves until a pool of fog fills the crypt and obscures our view. And still his arrival is put off for a grand entrance: Lee standing tall in aristocratic clothes and cape, with an ashen, corpse-like pallor, animal red eyes, and a heartless smile that pulls back to reveal his fangs before sinking them into his first victim.
Lee never speaks a word as Dracula, merely hissing and spitting like a cat and using his piercing eyes mesmerize and silently command his prey. Lee avoided returning to the role for years and seems to be back reluctantly. He has top billing but half the film has gone by before his first appearance and he has less screen time than any of the featured actors. He dominates his scenes by the sheer power of his size and presence and dark, ferocious magnetism, but he comes off more like a demonic beast in dress clothes than the ancient, cultured Count Dracula.
The rest of the film is routinely plotted. Charles is the story's answer to Jonathan Harker, young(ish) and impulsive and tempting fate by proposing a toast to the Count, and Diana is in the Mina role, the dewy young beauty who Dracula chooses to make his new bride. A solo Shelley stands in for the three female vampires of the novel and fly-gobbling Thorley Walters plays the Renfield role as a doddering old tinker. The modest budget keeps the action limited to just a few sets and a couple of locations in the woods. Even the castle, viewed from afar, is a small-scale model shot with soft focus to obscure its origins. But Fisher sets the tone beautifully in the first scene, a funeral procession through the wood with an angelic-looking young maiden on a litter and a man with a hammer and stake following behind, and as the film progresses he casts more shadows across the sets and drops the camera for low-angle shots and cant angles to suggest a world off-balance. As in Hammer's first Dracula, this film offers another inventive solution to the defeat of the vampire (drawn right out of vampire lore), and Andrew Keir's Father Sandor is a worthy stand-in for Van Helsing, at once a devoted priest, a religious warrior, and a worldly man, and Keir gives him an earthy, experienced presence.
Dracula: Prince of Darkness makes its stateside Blu-ray debut with the same restored and remastered transfer created by Studio Canal for the British Blu-ray release. The colors are strong but subdued throughout the film, jumping to life only when blood is spilled and the rich crimson burns into the image. The disc has been criticized for too much DNR smoothing over the grain but the image is clean and clear throughout and it is a significant improvement in clarity and detail from previous DVD releases.
New to this disc is the 30-minute documentary, Back to Black: The Making of Dracula: Prince of Darkness, featuring new interviews with actors Barbara Shelley and Francis Matthews, film historians Marcus Hearn and Jonathan Rigby, film music historian David Huckvale, and Sherlock writer and actor Mark Gattis, offering a little production history, some stories from the set, and an appreciation of the film.
Carried over from earlier Anchor Bay DVD release is commentary by stars Christopher Lee, Barbara Shelley, Francis Matthews and Suzan Farmer, recorded more than a decade ago with all four actors reunited and swapping remembrances in a collegial atmosphere, and there is an episode from the World of Hammer documentary series on "Hammer Stars: Christopher Lee." Also features a restoration comparison, a restored version of the original trailers, and a gallery of stills.
By Sean Axmaker
