Dracula: Prince of Darkness

Helen_S5.0

So this is it!! My all time favourite horror film. It's hard for me to put into words just how much I love this film. Every single thing about it. There are bits and pieces of all of my favourite things that I love about a horror in lots of other films but they are all combined in this. I have chills through this whole picture to this day. And the section from when the two brothers and their wives are taken to the castle, on one of a few glorious horse and carriage rides, till when they leave has my heart racing and I find it truly frightening as our moaning but sensible Helen who nobody listens to says in this. Much of those parts are like a ghost/murder mystery film with the wind howling a gale outside, curtains blowing, Klove arriving from the shadows cue fantastic shriek. Barbara Shelley is fantastic in this. Her "There'll be no morning for us" line is one of my favourites, really chilling right up there with Bela Lugosi's 'We understand each other better now" from White Zombie and The Invisible Man's reign of terror speech. Dracula is my favourite horror character and for me this is the most menacing portrayal. I am glad that Christopher Lee didn't like the lines he was given and refused to speak as it made him downright scary in this animalistic, hissing viper way. (Edit: Since heard about Sangster saying he never wrote any lines. Whoever's decision it was they were right!) This also has my favourite resurrection scene ever. It is so disturbing, so dramatical and just wow, it really blows me away everytime. I think the music is used better here than in any of the others. Perfect placement. Andrew Keir is brilliant as the Father. As much as I like Van Helsing and adore Peter Cushing this was not the type of film for Helsing. I'm glad they went this route. I loved his entrance as the hysterical villagers are about to stake a girl who hasn't even been bitten and then to the inn warming his backside at the fire haha. I also like the Renfield type character. And of course I can not leave this without mentioning the beautiful castle and my dream, four poster beds with red velvet curtains <3 Aww, I am tingling all over after this watch.

Anna🍓2.5

Oh boy this stinks! The absolute piss poor pacing of the first two acts will genuinely put you to sleep. Things only vaguely pick up at the 46 minute mark when we finally get to see Lee back in action and even then things still slug along for a bit. Quite a bad end to my mini hammer binge.

Ian West4.0

Despite seeing plenty of Hammer in my formative years, this movie was a blind spot that I didn’t end up seeing until maybe 10 years ago or so... and I ended up being very so-so on Dracula: Prince of Darkness, preferring the gorgeously shot previous entry Brides of Dracula—but revisiting this now after spending the better part of a decade deep dive digging into Hammer films and familiarizing myself with their canon—my perception of this has changed drastically.This movie contains just about everything you’d expect in a Hammer film... minus our beloved Peter Cushing. The setup, mansion, noble folks getting stranded, carriages, a loyal manservent, very slight lesbian undertones, the reddest blood, fog, melodrama, the burly hero priest, the colors, Terence Fischer, and naturally Christopher Lee—all scream 60’s techniscope terror. There’s even a shout-out character to crazy bug eating Renfield, which makes me happy.The special features on the new Scream Factory disc are wonderful, and shed some light on the myth that Lee refused to say any dialogue because the script was so bad when in actuality there was no dialogue written for him... instead we get an animalistic blood sacrifice resurrected terror beast... and it’s a pretty fascinating take from Lee. I’m a big fan of all these Hammer Dracula jams regardless of Lee or Cushing screen time that so many scoff/complain/whine about endlessly, and this watch was quite the bountiful experience for me—I can’t wait to revist this again!I can very firmly say that, even though I’m happy they both exist... I’ll watch this over Brides anyday.