Satanic Rites of Dracula

  

Satanic Rites of Dracula

1973

Director- Alan Gibson

Cast- Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Michael Coles, William Franklyn, Freddie Jones, Joanna Lumley, Valerie Van Ost, Richard Vernon, Barbara Yu Ling, Mia Martin

           

     Known in the States by the less controversial title, Dracula and His Vampire Brides, this movie is a direct sequel to Dracula 1972 A.D., taking place in the same timeline. It’s less of a horror film and more of a sci-fi / spy thriller with a little bit of horror thrown in.

           

     A British spy agency has been monitoring a secretive group that has high ranking members of British society in its ranks. The members all participate in salacious Satanic rites where they watch a beautiful nubile young girl get sacrificed on an altar, only to rise from the dead. The horny old men are appropriately aroused and enthralled, but its smoke and mirrors, so to speak. It’s not Satan that is bringing the girl back to life, its good old fashioned vampirism. The sacrificial girl and all of the other women serving the coven are vampires (unbeknownst to the men).

            

     Dracula is using these powerful men to engineer a world ending Armageddon utilizing a new strand of the Black Plague. Along with his stable of vampire women, Dracula also has an army of dirt bike riding henchmen, complete with matching outfits. Fearing reprisal from the powerful men in the coven, the spy agency brings in an outsider, a detective from Scotland Yard (Michael Coles, reprising his role from the previous film). The detective, upon learning of the occult details of the case brings in his old friend Van Helsing (Peter Cushing). Van Helsing brings in Jessica (played by Joanna Lumley this time instead of Stephanie Beacham). So much for secrecy at this point.

            

     

    Van Helsing suspects that his old nemesis is at the center of this cabal and confirms it when he confronts the Count , now living in a high rise apartment built on the site of the old church from the last film.

            

     The rest of the crew infiltrate the coven’s headquarters and the detective finds himself cornered in the basement with the Counts harem of brides. No worries though. Our old friend running water makes its triumphant return when he activates the sprinkler system and kills all of the women with one fell swoop. You know, if the vampires are that vulnerable to water, maybe putting their coffins underneath a sprinkler system was a bad idea. Kind of like the Wicked Witch leaving a bucket of water lying around. Lame.

            

     

      Dracula’s world ending plot is foiled and The Count , chasing after Van Helsing, meets his most humiliating death yet. He runs into a hawthorne bush and gets snagged on the thorns. He screams and writhes and weakly crawls on the ground until finally collapsing in exhaustion. Van Helsing ends the sad display by sticking a fence post in the Count.  So after being killed by sunlight, stakes, lightening, and the Power of God, the thing that finally got the Lord of the Undead was a bush. Yep, a bush. Oh Van Helsing might have put a fence post in him but that was just to save the Count further humiliation.

           

      This is a bad film. No two ways about it.  This was Lee’s last appearance as the Count for Hammer. He was thoroughly disgusted by the role, describing it as a cross between Dr. No and Howard Hughes (Dracula doesn’t even show up until half an hour into the film).  Though the film, and the role, are bad, it would be over stating it to say that this film is what finally turned him off. Lee had been losing interest in the franchise for some time and this volume was just the final nail in the coffin.

           

     Beyond that, the movie doesn’t even feel like a Hammer film, despite the presence of Lee and Cushing. It was directed by Alan Gibson who gave us Dracula 1972 A.D. but it doesn’t even feel like that film. It didn’t look like a Hammer film. It was missing that rich color palette that so many of the films had. It was also missing the recognizable faces that made Hammer films seem like a family reunion. It was also missing the Hammer starlets. Oh there are attractive women, but none of them are genre stars in their own right like what we had seen in the previous films. Every volume of the franchise up to that point had at least one memorable, iconic girl. The women in this film are just used like background scenery.

            

     As bad as the film is, there are some people that will like it and it does have some redeeming qualities.  The concept is original even if poorly executed. If it wasn’t a Hammer film but say, some lower budget Italian or Spanish film with Paul Naschy, I think I would have been able to enjoy it more.

            

     Although Hammer  was on its last leg, it would have one more installment of the Dracula franchise in store for us, a crazy one, that would at least end the franchise on a high note.

Fun fact- In this film, Dracula uses his power to trick a bunch of Satanists. A similar concept was used in the animated Tomb of Dracula movie, Dracula, Sovereign of the Damned. In that film, Dracula convinces a coven that he is the Prince of Darkness and steals one of their members for his wife.

Fun fact #2- Look out for a young  Freddie Jones (to the extent that he was ever young) as one of the coven members.