Just what I expected

Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

"Dracula" (aka "The Horror of Dracula") was one of the first Hammer films to really make an impact and to this day it remains the best of the series, keeping reasonably close to Bram Stoker's original novel. It was also the film that turned Christopher Lee into a star; it was obvious he was born to play Dracula, something he continued to do in several 'sequels' of varying quality. It also made a star of Peter Cushing, excellent as Van Helsing, though Cushing was already a very well-known supporting player in Britain. It was also beautifully designed and photographed by that fine and underrated cinematographer Jack Asher and unlike many subsequent 'monster' movies from the studio this one still has the ability to give you the shivers, thanks again to Lee's superb performance and special effects of an unusually high quality.

RELEASED IN 1958 and directed by Terence Fisher, "Horror of Dracula" chronicles events when Jonathan Harker (John Van Eyssen) goes to Dracula's castle under the pretense of a librarian. Later, the Prince of Darkness travels to Karlstadt, Germany, to prey on Harker's fiancée, Lucy (Carol Marsh), and her relatives, Arthur & Mina (Michael Gough & Melissa Stribling). Dr. Van Helsing (Peter Cushing), a student of vampirism and a friend of Harker's, shows up to try to put an end to the Count's reign of terror. Hammer Studios did nine Dracula films from 1958 to 1974: Horror of Dracula (1958); The Brides of Dracula (1960); Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966); Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968); Taste the Blood of Dracula (1969); Scars of Dracula (1970); Dracula AD 1972 (1972); The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973); and The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1974. Christopher played the Count in every one of these except "The Brides of Dracula" and "The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires." Hammer fans typically praise this first film in the series, Lee's first gig as Dracula, and it is a solid entry with the typical Hammer highlights: Lush Gothic ambiance, bright colors, Lee & Cushing and bodacious women. Lee's diabolical interpretation of the Count is another highpoint, not to mention one of the most stunning horror scores by James Bernard. Unfortunately, the abridged story loosely based on Stoker's novel is somehow unsatisfactory and there are too many 50's limitations IMHO.Here's one curious abbreviation: In the book the story starts in Transylvania, switches to England with Dracula voyaging to London, but ends up back in Transylvania for the climax. Coppola's 1992 film adhered to this European globetrotting, but Hammer decided to simplify the geography where travel time is condensed to something akin to a European theme park rather than reality. The tale starts outside of Klausenburg, the capital of Transylvania in Central Romania at the time, with Drac's castle nearby, then switches to Karlstadt, in South-Central Germany, which is roughly 750 miles from Klausenburg in reality, yet a mere carriage drive away in this film, perhaps 20 miles.THE MOVIE RUNS 1 hour 22 minutes and was shot entirely in Bray, Berkshire, England. WRITERS: Jimmy Sangster (screenplay) and Bram Stoker (novel). GRADE: B-

This is really not a very good movie.It is nowhere near the quality of the 1931 film and at times it is so confused that it approaches Ed Wood levels; and Wood's characters were seldom as lacking in energy and intention as the characters here.The one thing I will give it credit for is the frank sexual aspect that it gives to the vampiric relationship between Christopher Lee's Dracula and his female victims, and I have given it an extra star or two on that account. Although that makes the movie pretty much a celebration of rape fantasies: the tall virile man dominates his prey! The woman is ashamed and fearful, but she thinks only of his coming to her bed! etc.In order to claim that this movie is of higher quality than I've indicated, some process other than normal evaluation must be in play. Perhaps one feels that because this movie played an important part in the history of the Hammer studio and its Dracula franchise, it deserves to be uprated just because of its historical significance? I don't think that's how it works.The story is nowhere near as well thought out as the Abbott and Costello monster movies always were. I will rant about geography for a few sentences just to make my point. The Stoker novel begins in Transylvania; the Count voyages to London; then it ends up in Transylvania again. This is a lot of unnecessary traveling, so the 1931 movie (based on an earlier play) starts in Transylvania and then just has all of the conflict take place in London.The Hammer film decides to save on travel even more, by putting all the action into a sort of tiny space-warped Europe-themed park, at one end of which is Klausenburg (the capital of Transylvania) and at the other of which is Karlstadt, a German city populated by English people, which is 800 miles from Transylvania on the map of Europe but only about 20 miles away in this movie, a brief carriage ride away. You may think this is a picky point, but my real point is that any middle-school student would come up with a geographical approach that made more sense. The middle-school screenwriter would also have more of a sense of the do's and don'ts of vampire-hunting: for example, when you have only a few minutes before sunset to go and kill vampires, don't waste time writing about it in your miserable journal! (In fact it seems that Harker could have just dispatched Dracula in the first minute of this movie if he had had any gumption.)The middle-school screenwriter might think that the male characters should devote more attention to actually preventing the female ones from being killed and converted to vampires, and to care more if they fail in it. But I can't blame that entirely on the screenplay; the blame for the characters' languid attitude has to be shared by the actors and director as well.Much of the vampire-chasing action involves Dracula running out of rooms in order to come back in and make an entrance, taking no thought for the time of day or presence of windows (why does he even have windows in his castle, why hasn't he boarded them up in 600 years). Meanwhile his opponents act as if crucifixes and garlic cost their weight in diamonds, and decline to deploy them as they should. I could go on in this regard, but it isn't worth it.

Someone here recorded it, so I thought, 'what the heck'. This was a big surprise, as it was good! Ordinarily I would have passed on it, having seen other films like it which were junk movies, pure and simple. But the main role went to Peter Cushing playing Helsing, the vampire slayer (I borrowed that from a current popular entity), and I can report that neither he nor Christopher Lee overacted or hammed it up as they did in other over-the-top horror films. The story moved along, the color was natural and the plot was (almost) plausible, never descending into vaudeville. Good supporting acting and a thoroughly refreshing dip into the horror genre make this one worth recommending.