The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973)
Directed by Alan Gibson

Film Review

It is almost universally acknowledged that Dracula A.D. 1972 is the weakest of Hammer's eight Dracula films, a bungled attempt to pluck Bram Stoker's vampiric fiend from his traditional Gothic setting and parachute him into swinging seventies London.  What then of its immediate sequel, The Satanic Rites of Dracula, made by the same production team, featuring most of the same principal cast and again set in London of the early 1970s?   It seems that writer Don Houghton and director Alan Gibson learned from the mistakes they had made on their first Dracula film and their second attempt is a considerable improvement - not a classic by any means, but a fairly respectable way to round off Hammer's series of Dracula films.

Dennis Wheatley's popular series of occult novels (which Hammer had previously dipped into with The Devil Rides Out) appears to have been the main inspiration for The Satanic Rites of Dracula, although at times you could be forgiven for thinking that it was cobbled together from a rejected script for Doctor Who (Houghton had only recently scripted two stories for the cult television series).  In contrast to Dracula's previous contemporary London outing, which is essentially a traditional Hammer vampire flick dressed up in ill-fitting modern glad rags, here there is an obvious attempt to catch up with prevailing horror trends, namely a fascination with the occult and fears over germ warfare. 

Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of the film is the extent to which its central protagonists, Dracula and Van Helsing (played for the last time by Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing in their final shared credit for Hammer), have changed since their last encounter.  Dracula is no longer the camp, almost cartooneqsue spectre of previous films but a genuine manifestation of evil.  Lee invests him with a chilling sense of reality and has never looked more powerful and coldly sinister on screen.  Cushing's Van Helsing is no longer the confident vampire slayer of earlier years but a world-weary old man who appears almost overwhelmed by the evil that confronts him.  You can almost feel the electricity in the air when the two characters face one another on screen, the saviour of mankind pitied against the supreme lord of darkness for what could well be the last time.

The Satanic Rites of Dracula offers exactly what every fan of Hammer's vampire films had yearned for ever since Van Helsing's first showdown with Dracula way back in 1958 - a heart-stoppingly climactic rematch.  Unfortunately, this comes late in the film and before we get to this point we have to sit through a somewhat tedious run-around which feels like an average episode of your favourite '70s police procedural drama.  Houghton's habit of drowning his narrative in buckets of wordy and mostly unnecessary exposition causes the film to get off to an incredibly slow start, and when, finally, things do start to move it's invariably with recourse to the old staple of cellar brawl and countryside chase.  Another cause of annoyance is that whenever vampires show up there just happens to be, within easy reach of whichever good guy they are menacing, an embarrassingly simple means of dispatching them.  And these particular vampires are a pretty feeble lot, readily sent packing with water, twigs or any odd bit of wood that happens to be lying about.  It does diminish a vampire's credibility somewhat to know that you can destroy it just by picking up a random household object and sticking it in him.

Alan Gibson's work a director is just as patchy as it was on his previous Dracula offering but there are a few moments of brilliance that make you wonder if he is destined for much greater things (in fact his prolific career in television was cut short when he died suddenly at the age of 49 in 1987). Christopher Lee may have had major misgivings about the film (by most accounts he appears to have hated every minute of it) but he gives it his best shot, positively revelling in the role that brought him international renown, with Peter Cushing once again giving a flawless performance as his eternal adversary.  Reprising his role as the implausibly long-haired police inspector from Dracula A.D. 1972, Michael Coles is on hand to lend muscle and vigour to the film's many crow-barred-in action sequences, with Joanna Lumley adding a dash of good-old-fashioned girly glamour to the proceedings, wimpishly screaming and fainting incessantly because this is what pretty young females did in those days, or at least until Purdey came along and began to kick the stuffing out of male chauvinism in the mid-70s.  The Satanic Rites of Dracula has its flaws certainly, but it is far from being a dismal final fling.  In time, Hammer might conceivably have been able to turn the tide and make a successful transition to the more realistic kind of horror films that were proving popular on both sides of the Atlantic.  Alas, with the British film industry in terminal decline, time was the one thing the studio didn't have...

Film Synopsis

A branch of the British secret service finds itself in a quandary when the government minister who oversees it is found to be participating in satanic rituals at an English country house.  Fearing that the minister in question may act to close down the department its chief operative enlists the help of a police inspector, Murray, to look further into the activities of the mysterious sect.  Having worked with him on a previous case, Murray joins forces with Professor Lorrimar Van Helsing, a world authority on the occult.  Visiting the country house, Murray has a close encounter with several female vampires in the cellar.  Meanwhile, Van Helsing pays a call on another scientist, Julian Keeley, and is appalled to discover that he has been developing an even deadlier strain of bubonic plague, one that has the potential to totally wipe out mankind.  Van Helsing's investigation leads him to the offices of property developer D. D. Denham, where he comes face-to-face with the demonic fiend with whom his ancestors have battled for centuries - Dracula himself!  Even Van Helsing is taken aback when he learns the grim fate that his ancestral arch-enemy has in store for mankind...