Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972)
The celebrated, cherished Hammer Films were on the downslide by the time this one came out.....
The gothic, beautifully crafted period stuff wasn't working for young audiences anymore, so no wonder this film seemed like such a novel idea....
Have some young, mod, mini-skirted, disco-dancin', Carnaby Street dig up Drac.....and face the consequences.....
We're not saying this isn't fun to watch. It is. Christopher Lee still makes the most imposing of bloodsuckers......Hammer even lets him spit out a few words of dialogue every so often......
But given the amazing idea of having Drac pop up in what was then modern London, it could have been so much more......more bloody, more funny, more over-the-top.......
Don't hold your breath waiting. Doesn't happen. Despite the modern setting, the plotting's by-the-numbers dreary. Sir Christopher glowers and sucks.....literally, we mean.
But bonuses await........Peter Cushing's back as the great-grandson of Van Helsing and he knows all about great-dad's tried and true vampire fighting techniques. Cushing and Lee get to go at it one more time and that sequence at least qualifies as a comfort watch.
Ah, we musn't forget the inclusion of the fabulously well constructed Caroline Munroe who g becomes Drac's first 20th century blood bank. Bravo to Caroline's big death scene and how she launched a thousand erections in teen boys everywhere......
We'll also throw in a brief mention of Christopher Neame as Drac's unctuous creepy minion who looks he got recently kicked out the "Clockwork Orange " gang for being even too snotty for Alex and the droogs. And give us a break on his name.....Johnny Alucard? Really? Great death scene though, where he endures almost every form of decimation devised in the how-to-kill-a-vampire guidebook.....including a cold shower.
Merely okay, but boy oh boy did this have potential never realized. Disco Drac? Why not? Drac runs into Lulu and the gang from "To Sir With Love"? See what we mean......endless possibilities.
After modernity didn't work, Hammer went the sex 'n boobs route to juice up the offerings, but horror was entering the beginning of new nastier age and left the studio in the dust....along with its naked starlets.....
Hammer homeys won't want to miss it, but for everyone else......sorry, nothing special to see here....
2 stars (**).
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