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Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973)

Count Dracula And His Vampire Bride
Rites of Dracula


Cast:

Christopher "Saurmon or Count Dooku for the younger generations" Lee is Count Dracula
Peter "Grand Moff Tarkin" Cushing is Lorimar Van Helsing
Freddie "Thufir Hawat of 80s Dune" Jones is Professor Keeley
Joanne Lumley is Jessica


What the box says:

In this Seventies update of the classic Dracula story, Count Dracula (Christopher Lee) leads a satanic cult of prominent citizens intent on unleashing a mutated form of the plague virus onto the world. The only person who might be able to stop this diabolical plot before it is enacted is Dracula's arch nemesis and occult expert, Lorimar Van Helsing (Peter Cushing). Horror movie fans will be enthralled with this tense and gory chiller which brings the bloody legend of Count Dracula to life.


Plot:

While Cartman may truly despise hippies, I am not quite that bad. However, the following paragraphs will include exclamations of joy as hippies get whacked and go to that big folk music festival (if the Dead Milkmen are correct) in the hereafter.

The Hammer Studios equivalent of a Blacksploitation instrumental theme plays as we see the shadow of Dracula slowly grow larger around various London landmarks. Weren�t vampires unable to be out in the sun to cast shadows?


Shouldn't Dracula get a better intro than this?

In a mansion, a bunch of Satanists are having one of their rites. Some Oriental lady is presiding over the sacrifice. They even have the obligatory naked blonde woman for a table.

Upstairs, a hippie is having some coffee. Hanson (not the group who sang MMMMM-Bop.) is tied to bed. He is able to free himself of the ropes. A hippie strangling ensues. Yes, hippie killing and naked women in the first 5 minutes.

Hanson creeps past several more of the dirty hippies. Unfortunately, he trips an alarm.

The hippies and the Satanists hear the alarm. The search for Hanson begins. Our hippie killing hero is almost trapped when somebody starts blasts away at the filthy creatures. I mean the hippies. A car is able to get Hanson away.

In an infirmary, Hanson is passing information that John Porter was attending the devil worshipping.

We get a flashback with the aforementioned naked blonde table girl. They kill a rooster and start the services.

Hanson was able to take some photos of the members with his spy camera-watch.

Hanson dies. Peter Chance retrieves the film from the watch. We learn that John Porter is the head of British Intelligence and the boss of all these agents. They need ironclad proof before revealing any of this.

Chance sends HC to develop the film and transcribe Hanson�s final report.

The Chief wants the investigation quiet. He does recommend that Inspector Murray from Scotland Yard be brought in on this case. The Chief warns Chance is on this case unofficially. If anything goes bad, it will be all their heads.

Another montage with the funky theme plays.

Chance and Murray are briefed about the mansion where the devil worshippers attend their soir�es.

We get another flashback to the devil worshippers and naked blonde table girl.


Dude, I'm so wasted...

Our agents assume the Satanists are some sort of spy ring. John Porter could dissolve the agency so they must operate on the QT. They watch slides of several of the captains of industry who are involved. One of the slides doesn�t have anybody in it.

Later, hippies are trailing HC. Down a dead alley they break through the windshield and get her.

Murray replays Hanson�s debriefing.

The rite ensues as blonde naked table girl is stabbed.

After listening to the tape, Murray has someone he wants to bring in on the case. The renowned Professor Lorimar Van Helsing is an expert in the fields of anthropology and the occult.

Van Helsing hears Hanson�s tape and enjoys �HMMMMMMMMMM-Bop.�

Rite ensues. Naked table girl gets up, and the wound heals.

Smoking Van Helsing ensues. He has more than an open mind than Murray and Chance. The discussion leads into cults that worship blood. Jessica, Van Helsing�s granddaughter, arrives. After examining the photos, Van Helsing recognizes one of the satanists. The acquaintance is a professor of biology. Van Helsing decides to try to learn more than a bunch of cops and secret agents.

Van Helsing has to sneak into the back door of Keely�s lab. One of the sheepskin jacketed hippies spies Van Helsing enter.

SCIENCE in the lab ensues. Keely is hard at work. Van Helsing pops in, and Keely is acting awfully strange for being on a very tight deadline.

Later, the hot secretary chick, who was snatched by the dirty hippies, awakens. The door opens, and Dracula appears at more than 31 minutes into the movie. Well, Dracula wants feed Hot Secretary Chick�s Frankenstein. The vampirification ensues.

Van Helsing is still talking with Keely. He isn�t able to find any notes of the research. Keely starts rambling about evil when Van Helsing slaps him to reality. Keely has made a new virulent strain of the Bubonic Plague, the Black Death. Van Helsing wants to know more about the deadline unaware of the stealthy dirty hippie. He knocks out Van Helsing and takes Keely.

Dracula carries the Hot Chick away.

Van Helsing awakens to find Keely hanging from the rafters. The containers of the plague are gone.

Jessica wants to go with Chance and Murray. They make her stay behind.

Our intrepid heroes are admitted to the mansion without any trouble.

However, Jessica decides to sneak in anyways.

Chance and Murray question the Oriental Lady.

Jessica is able to get into the mansion through the cellar. Several large wooden boxes are scattered about the room. She finds Hot Chick chained to the wall and is going to free her until spotting the secretary�s fangs. Jessica barely escapes being a snack. The coffins start to open. The brides grab her when she stars screaming.

Murray and Chance hear and run to the basement. They find the brides fondling Jessica.


"Sure, it looks like a bunch of vampire women are trying to feast on my inner circle. Care to join in?"
She is able to escape the Sapphically minded vampire chicks.

Chance hears Hot Chick cry for help. He starts to unchain her when she decides she needs to accept a blood donation without the donor�s permission.

Murray grabs a loose piece of wood and stakes Hot Chick. They decide to get pout of Dodge fast.

Oriental Lady calls the boss.

Murray, Chance, and Jessica are heading towards the car. The dirty hippies start chasing them. Chance guns a few of them down. Yes, random hippie killing.

The chase continues as our heroes scale the wall to escape their pursuers.

Later, Van Helsing tells them about Keely. Our expert explains about these creatures.

They discover that a reclusive wealthy industrialist by the name of Denham funded Keely�s work.

Van Helsing explains how his family has fought Dracula for centuries. The Chief can�t believe any of this. Apparently, Porter has closed down the intelligence agency and branded the agents as traitors.

Van Helsing tells how he killed Dracula 2 years earlier but someone brought him back using a reincarnation ritual. The church graveyard where Dracula was buried has been built over by an office building built by Denham.

Van Helsing explains the various ways to kill vampires: silver, garlic, running water, a crown of thorns, stakes, etc�

The 23rd is the sabbat of the undead. Certain of these days are when terrible things happen. They figure that the Satanists will emerge in power after the plague is released. Van Helsing considers the possibility that Dracula wants to kill everyone and find his peace by ending it all. That would be the vampire�s ultimate revenge.

Murray and Jessica spy on the mansion. Chance checks back with the Chief in the car. The chief is dead. Chance quickly joins him after being shot by the dirty hippie sniper.

Van Helsing is at work and melting down silver.

Jessica and Murray are still on watch.

Van Helsing is making silver bullets.

Still on watch, the sniper shoots at Murray and Jessica.


The first of the secret hippie army spies on their enemies who destroyed David Crosby's secret stash.
They are able to escape being pinned down. They get to the Chief�s car and find dirty hippies all over the place. Murray gets knocked out.

Van Helsing pays a visit to Denham�s office building. Normally, no one is allowed visit Denham. However, Van Helsing is allowed to do so.

Murray awakens in a cellar.

Van Helsing is greeted by the reclusive Denham. The industrialist plans to start a new political regime, and the Black Plague is the deterrent. Van Helsing starts talking about vampires. He is able to learn that Denham is a vampire. Van Helsing whips out his crucifix and realizes that Denham is actually Dracula.

Van Helsing draws his gun and about to bust cap in the bloodsucking monster. Suddenly, the Satanists leap to Dracula�s rescue. They want Van Helsing to be killed now. However, Dracula wants Van Helsing to suffer more through his daughter.

Murray awakens. The Oriental Lady wants to escape. She seems to be hypnotizing him. Suckin� face ensues. He realizes she is a vampire. Fighting her, she gets staked in non-sexual way.

Murray gets attacked by one of the brides. He is able to force them back with makeshift cross made from 2 pieces of wood. At the stairs, Murray spots a control for the sprinkler system. Turning it on, it burns the brides. Wet dying vampire chicks ensue.

Murray is now in the mansion. He spots Jessica in the Satanist altar room. He gets to place to hide before Dracula and Satanists bring in the captive Van Helsing.

Dracula approaches the altar.

Murray hides in the hippie computer control room and is able to spy on the occurrences in the altar room.

Dracula begins his invocation. Jessica will be his bride. One of the Satanists has a vial of the plague.

Murray can�t get past the hippie guard.

Van Helsing argues the plague kill everyone. Dracula has his 4 Horsemen including the Nature Boy. Whooo-Hoooooooo!!!! Sorry, the 3 Satanists and Van Helsing will fulfill Dracula�s mission. Jessica will be converted. Apparently, the Satanists didn�t realize they would be killed and thought the plague would allow them to take over and rule the world.

Dracula is about to sample Jessica�s Grade-A jugular. He gets interrupted by a whiny Satanist who is complaining. He gets hypnotized and breaks vial of the plague in his hand. The sucker promptly starts suffering intensely.

A hippie walks into the computer room with Murray. The dirty hippie battle begins.

The dying Satanist keeps painfully suffering.

M is able to knock the hippie into a large computer which promptly electrocutes the villainous hippie. Murray gets away.

In the altar room, the Satanists and Van Helsing are desperately keeping away from the infected guy.

The computer room explodes.

The Satanists escape.

Murray heads to the altar room.

Van Helsing has Murray get Jessica to safety.

It is Dracula versus Van Helsing. The mansion is quickly ablaze. Van Helsing must still avoid the plague carrying Satanist. Our professor of the occult is able to break out a window and escape. Dracula quickly follows him.

Murray has gotten Jessica to safety. He rushes back to the mansion to get Van Helsing but finds the par broiled dead Satanist, instead. Murray goes back to Jessica.

Dracula and Van Helsing are playing cat and mouse. Suddenly, Van Helsing gets an idea and calls out Dracula who is entangled in a thorn bush. Van Helsing grabs part of rickety fence to use as a stake.

Dracula has escaped the bush but has a crown of thorns around his head. Van Helsing stakes him in a non-sexual way.

Dracula quickly decomposes into bones and finally into dust. Van Helsing picks up Dracula�s ring.


What I say:

Most reviews of the Satanic Rites of Dracula are required to mention how it seems like an episode of the Avengers with vampires. More than that, they'll mention that Joanna Lumley was in the New Avengers. Well, I got those out fast enough. I never watched the Avengers until after I discovered Captain America, Wasp, or Hawkeye wasn't in it. Just another example of my comic book uber-geekiness. The Satanic Rites of Dracula does seem more like an spy movie than a vampire movie for the most part. The movie doesn't start off with vampires. It takes more than 20 minutes before even introducing Professor Van Helsing. It is more than 30 minutes before getting to Dracula. We get mostly the dirty hippies getting offed which isn't a bad thing.

I normally like to post reviews in the order of the movies. However, with something like this, it might take a few years until I hunt down the previous movies. I'm sure that I've seen at least Horror of Dracula if not a couple of the other ones. Some of the later ones, I am sure I haven't watched before. I didn't known the movie series kept going from Victorian times to the swinging 1970s.

As a service to my hopefully my ten of fans who might wonder what movies are in the Hammer Dracula series. The following list is for you.

NameYear
Horror of Dracula
Dracula
1958
Dracula-Prince of Darkness 1966
Dracula Has Risen From the Grave 1968
Taste the Blood of Dracula 1970
Scars of Dracula 1970
Dracula A.D. 1972
Dracula Today
1972
Satanic Rites of Dracula
Count Dracula and His Vampire Bride
Rites of Dracula
1973

Today's movies have taken hold of Ann Rice's vampires. Unfortunately, the "poor me I must walk the centuries alone and will dress in black and look like a goth loser"charisma-less vampires are a joke. A few movies have evil vampires like Drake in Blade: Trinity movies even if that Dracula was running around killing vampire-wannabee goth losers but still dressed like one of them. I prefer the Brian Lumley uber-evil type from the Necroscope series of books. Read once and a while, people.... They are truly malevolent and revel in not wallow in pity of having to drain a few pints every night.

Peter Cushing is able to talk about vampires and not sound out of his gourd. That is an accomplishment. Most actors can only rail about how evil the creature is. Not Cushing, he may lack having wire fu and super crossbows unlike LEgend of the 7 Vampires. The man can still pack a pistol and is quite able at breaking apart picket fences for staking undead.

Christopher Lee was only in this movie for 15 minutes or so. I think it would be safe to say Lee seems bored and wanting to get out of repeatedly playing Dracula. He is probably one of the best Draculas ever. You can actually see him a Christopher Lee with bloodshot eyes walking into a room and the woman is mesmerized by him, and Dracula has a snack. The end where he starts ranting about releasing his horsemen upon the Earth has the feel of a crazed Dracula sick of it all.

Most of the Hammer movies had Peter Cushing as the hero Van Helsing to battle the Dracula. Yes, Cushing played Dr. Frankenstein. However, I would have loved to have seen a movie where a heroic Christopher Lee battled the evil Peter Cushing. A remake of the Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff classic Black Cat would have been a classic horror fan dream come true.

Dracula has tossed away the foreign noble persona and decided to become super-villain. Not a hoky super villain, but he is in the mold of Fu Manchu, which Christopher Lee also played several movies in the 60s. The wealthy James Bond type villain who uses his lackeys to do his dirty work. Who would suspect the dirty hippies for working for Vlad the Impaler? It is good thing the Prince of the Undead got a bunch of sheepjacketed dirty hippies for his dirty work. I could rejoice as each of them joined that folk music festival in the hereafter. However, there seems something wrong with Dracula using hippies for henchmen. It is hard to picture such a noble as the Count wanting to employ dirty hippies. The best reason I can think of is they aren't black-clad depressed whiny goth posers like in Reign in Darkness.

A Count Dracula tired of his immortal life and wanting to unleash a superplague on the world to take the world out with him seems like the way an insane immortal would go out. "If I go, I'm taking everyone with me." That seems to be the thought of a European noble especially one who keeps returning from the dead and needs a few pints.

Hammer had 2 of the most famous horror actors of all time: Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. Each of the actors had been in some movies that are pretty embarrassing. Lee in Howling 2. As good as each of them are apart and put them together, you've got something even better. One of the big problems with the Satanic Rites of Dracula is the pacing Lee is in only in it for 15 minutes. I was just waiting for Dracula and Van Helsing's confrontation. It didn't disappoint. The final battle between the two unfortunately did disappoint.

The end was quite a letdown. Dracula trapped in a thornbush. I've heard numerous legends of way to kill vampires. In high school and even in college, I did term papers on vampires. Well, the teachers wanted topics that hadn't been done to death like the death penalty, etc... Neither of them were stating that actual undead creatures prowled about drinking blood. It was more on the various mythologies from different countries. However, thornbushes have to be the second most off-the-wall method of killing the undead monsters. The first would have to be a sprinkler to kill them thus symbolizing running water. Doesn't that mean that vampires need to be afraid of getting caught without an umbrella?

The fact that the secret service or intelligence agency must discreetly investigate the cult because their boss is involved is a nice touch. Normally, we'll have the agent go renegade because his superiors are afraid of what will be uncovered. The typical "this is a powder keg which could blow up on everyone of us. Let it go..." Not here though, even better, later, the chief reveals that most of the agents have been tracked down or branded as subversives. So, they are on their own without the resources they would normally have.

Dracula running around in the 1970s could have been a truly terrifying idea. Avenging Disco Dracula Godfather. At least, this was made in the mid 70s. The late 70s might have needed a disco scene. It just seems natural for an English vampire movie to always be set in Victorian times. At least, it didn't have the fish-out-of-water vibe contemporizing might do. Well, Dracula A.D. 1972 may have fallen into that trap. However, I haven't seen it yet.

The movie loves to keep showing the devil worshipping rite. They sure like to keep showing the pasty old English guys worshipping the devil. This is just a good way to keep the camera focusing on the naked chick every 5 to 10 minutes or so. Beast of Yucca Flats only flashed a little nudity less than minute into the movie. Satanic Rites of Dracula is more determined to keep using it to remind everyone this is an "R-rated" movie. It wouldn't have put the audience to sleep to remove the nakedity. At least, we have a reason to keep watching the movie. When will naked blonde table girl pop up again?

The movie does have several questions. It is never really explained how the English powers that be got involved with Dracula's cult. For that matter, why was there an Oriental Lady conducting the services? What exactly do you blackmail other countries to do when you have a super bubonic plague? Were the English powers that be so stupid to actually trust a vampire? Why wasn't the mansion made safer for vampires? How much do you pay hippies to kill and wear sheepskin jackets?

Lee and Cushing could still elevate a movie like Satanic Rites of Dracula into a far better class than you could imagine. Hammer Studios were running on steam by this point as horror movies became gorier and they just couldn't compete. The year later, Frankenstein and the Monster From Hell and the Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter were released and the last gasp of breath from Hammer Studios.

Point to Ponder


This movie is still more believable than say Dracula 3000. Believability about a vampire movie with Coolio and Casper Van Dien is so far on the other side of logic it would need to be graphed 5th dimensionally for anyone to truly comprehend it.


3 NINJAS

Quotable Dialogue

"A cocktiel to be killed."
"A bunch of middle aged men indulging themselves in some sort of sick orgy."
"This particular evil is more potent and addictive than heroin."
"Well, you are the law."
"My revenge has spread over centuries, and has just begun!"


Morals of the Story

Hippies dress like gypsies.
Chickens are of the devil.
Naked women react to blood being spilt on them like acid.
Biker hippies are very inconspicious.
Doors normally open on their own for your guests.
Vampires don't have pulses.
Waving your hands in slow motion is scary.
Cops can impale chained and half-naked women with impunity.
Vampires are pyrokinetic.




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