"The Satanic Rites of Dracula."

Everything has it's day and it's dawn.  Hammer Films was no different.

In the late fifties, they began what can be called the Silver Age of Horror Films by transforming the old Universal classics such as Dracula and Frankenstein and upping the ante.  Gothic, expensive settings framed the madness of men and the ugliness of monsters.  When people were killed, the blood was red and real.  This wasn't stuff for kids that thought reality cut away when a vampire sucked blood or a monster twisted off a human neck.   And Hammer was responsible for it, and so their day began.

However, when you're popular, you're good.  And people notice, and this isn't always good.

Ripoffs came and over the next twenty years while Hammer did their trade, over followed.  And some did it better.  Some pushed the limits beyond just hinted sexuality.  Nudity became the norm in this new, no holds barred reality.  But Hammer wasn't that willing to go that far.  I would classify it as class;  despite their perchant for gore and a pseudo-realistic take towards horror, they would not turn the genre into what it eventually came.

Sadly, their days were numbered.  Slowly their trademark Frankenstein and Dracula movies started to go downhill on a creative scale.  While the Frankenstein movies remained a linear fashion (with Peter Cushing playing the Baron on nearly every occasion), the Hammer Dracula films were far more complicated.  While they were all related in a somewhat linear fashion, they can be placed in three different categories:
 

• The Christopher Lee Ones:  This is the accepted and most recognized Hammer Drac films where Chris Lee played the count to the hilt.  Most of these are either mediocre (due to the fact that Lee wasn't given much dialogue until the later films, which had their own problems) or truly excellent.  This is a shame, since Lee proved he was a fantastic actor in the highly recommended "The Devil Rides Out."
• The Peter Cushing Alternate Ones:  Due to his commitment to the "Frankenstein" films, often Cushing and Lee somehow couldn't fit their schedules around appearing in the same Drac films until our experiment today and it's predecessor, "Dracula 1972 A.D."  Despite this, Cushing revamps his character of Van Helsing (or his descendants) in these films which include the fantastic "Brides of Dracula" and "The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires."  These films range from good to even better, due to part that Cushing is allowed to speak.
• The Other Vampire Related Hammer Films:  These films, like "The Vampire Lovers," "Lust for a Vampire," and "Kiss of a Vampire" are included because they were influenced by the Dracula films but were still Hammer Films.  Hell, Peter Cushing even plays in some of them ("Twins of Evil" being one).   Honestly, I have a suspicion that some of these films began life as possible Dracula movies but went another way when either Lee, Cushing, or a suitable idea wasn't available.  Plus, oddities like "Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter" are included here.

Alas, Hammer realized their mistake and resurrected Dracula for the seventh and last time here:  "The Satanic Rites of Dracula."  Somewhere in England, several businessmen are being lured to a Satanic cult which is lead by a mysterious businessman by the name of D.D. Denham.  Denham happens to be a recluse who has never been seen, which was a big thing in the '70s and such.   Despite the best efforts of a secret government agency, they cannot get the point of the cult's weird sacrifices and call in Van Helsing (Cushing) to discover what it is.  Eventually, he tracks down Denham and with a hidden cross in a book, finds out that Denham is really Dracula.  Why does Dracula want with several important businessmen as well as some governmental types?  Some contrived plot about poisoning the world to make 'everyone as dead as he is.'  And such.  Anyway, after a lot of padding Van Helsing takes care of Dracula through an previously unused method:  thorns of a certain plant.  Of course, why Dracula would have something that could cause his destruction on the grounds of his Satanic mansion is beyond me.

In fact, most of this movie is beyond me.  We have several subplots but it's all unnecessary.  Why do we need the government agents or Van Helsing's daughter?  The original plot of Dracula taking over the world by poisoning it just for some self-esteem issues is fascinating but not explored enough.  It was like the original story wasn't expanded enough so someone created a few dozen subplots and some nudity and called it done.  The final product isn't a superior horror story, but a nice mess with a cool story inside.  A real shame, too, to end the series on.  I've heard there were more ideas in the pipeline that were better but after this, I would fear that Hammer might have just wasted the premise on these stories by loading them up with unnecessary nudity and gore.  Sure, it's fun as an extra, but when it's the whole point of the movie all you have is just a cheap attempt to get money.  That approach never works.

And, of course, the American Distributors of this film (Warner Brothers) thought the same.  After buying it and sitting on it for a year, they finally cut it some and released it as "Count Dracula and His Vampire Bride" which emphasized Van Helsing's daughter's role in the whole thing.  Of course, she was another subplot that wasn't really necessary.  Either way, after this Hammer went out of business slowly and that was that.

RATING:  Too little story, too much unneeded nudity and gore.  They should have saved on the budget by omitting characters and tightening it up.  I'd rather have a brilliant shorter film than a boring long one.  But still, Cushing and Lee were (and are) the heart of this movie, and they hold it up the best they can.  Two stars out of four, and those are for Cushing and Lee.