Son of the Revenge of the 31 Days of Cheese - Dracula and His Vampire Bride

So it’s valentine’s day – time to relax with the significant  other- break out a bottle of good bubbly, maybe some chocolate covered strawberries and scented oils and watch Dracula and his vampire Bride.

Wait what?

This 1973 film – released in England and everywhere else as The satanic rites of Dracula – marks the last time Christopher Lee would play Dracula for Hammer films – he’d been rather upset with the attempts to update the character (the year before  rather bad Dracula A.D. 1972) and after this he stopped doing the character. I can see why Hammer films was really getting to the bottom of the barrel by then .

Anyway we open up with a black mass being done in a creepy house – hammer in order to up the ante on films in these days would show a bit of skin now and then – in this case a naked girl was the alter for the black mass  I know it was supposed to be erotic and titillating and make you uneasy at the same time as you’re getting turned on while folks are saying version hail Satan but really I just thought the poor girl looked cold. And as she’s naked for quite a while I have to assume the scene took several days to do .

Meantime upstairs there is a man upstairs in a bed he is tied up  he frees himself from his captors – biker types with shaggy woolen vests – and flees – the ceremony is interrupted the shaggy biker types get on bikes and go after him but are shot by someone who drags the  prisoner into the car.

Turns out this fellow is with MI-5 or MI-6 or MI -9.95 anyway a colonel and someone else drink whiskey at the man while he describes the scene which involves some of the most prominent men in the country – including the guy who is in charge of this department. After which he drops dead.

There is some toing and frowing but the money shot here is that they show the rest of the ceremony and the girl is stabbed and then gets better. (again she just looks cold) .

Mystified by all this – and not able to move openly because the man in charge of their department is one of the devil worshipers. So they pass this off someone at Scotland yard – who then knows someone who is an expert on all this sort of stuff. Van Helsing – played by a very frail looking Peter Cushing. He sees that this is not ordinary black mass (which is an odd thing to say how many ordinary black masses are there? Really?) and mentions the name Dracula (Da Da Da! )

Van Helsing goes to see one of the devil worshipers who turns out to be making an accelerated form of the black death. Well you have to do something I suppose. Van Helsing is knocked out and comes to and finds the devil worshiper hanging from a noose.

Meantime the Scotland yard folks visit the manor house were all the weird stuff was happening. Along with the two men is the daughter of van Helsing who promptly gets in trouble by breaking into the house going down to the basement and finding all sorts of lady vampires there chained to eh walls (why? I guess to keep them from running about) this includes the naked girl from earlier which explains why she didn’t die she’s a vampire (Da! Da! DA!)

There is a conference where Peter takes in the news and then lists the ways a vampire can be killed – stake though the heart yes, pure running water, a silver bullet to the heart, sunlight, hawthorn bushes, (at this point the viewer is beginning to think that maybe Peter could have gone through the list of things that don’t kill a vampire) et al.

Turns out Dracula has used the other men to make the super plague to kill everybody – exactly why isn’t really clear – as is pointed out once everybody dies Drac has not food supply.

The film as has been noted, really plays like a thriller – the part of Dracula could have been done by say Fu Manchu (killing everybody is well within Fu’s comfort zone) or a standard Bond villain. The Dracula bit seems forced into the film.

A note to Van Helsing – when you have Dracula in your sights with one shot derringer with the one silver bullet in it – don’t waste time telling Drac that you have a silver bullet in the gun – he’ll find out soon enough.

In the end the lady vampires are slain by of all things a sprinkler system (running water) Drac comes a cropper in a hawthorn bush – and he gets staked by Van Helsing.

And roll credits and say farewell to Hammer films really and Chris  as Dracula.

Enjoy with winsledale cheese.