Dracula A.D. 1972

Besides Universal, the studio that has the most enduring legacy of making Dracula films is Hammer Studios, a British outfit that started making them in the '50s and went on for a couple of decades. They are notable for bringing attention to Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, two proper British actors who made their mark in ghoulish activities.

The DVD record of Hammer films is spotty, and one of the few available is one of the last, Dracula A.D. 1972, a not entirely successful attempt to link Carnaby Street to Transylvania. Lee is in it, but barely, as most of the action is dominated by actors trying to convince us they are hippies. Seems to me hippies were antiquated even by '72.

A bunch of young people (some looking much older than others) are thrown out of a party in a posh neighborhood and try to think of something else to do (notably, none of the so-called hippies is ever seen doing drugs, which might have solved their problem). A guy fairly new to the group, Johnny, suggests a Satanic ritual in an old church. Everybody seems keen, except for Stephanie Beacham, and maybe that's because her last name is Van Helsing. Oh, and Johnny's is Alucard.

Of course Johnny is a disciple of Dracula, and his ritual raises him from the dead (he had been killed while battling the original Van Helsing 100 years earlier, when a wagon wheel pierced his heart). Lee, as commanding and imperial as ever, wants revenge on the Van Helsings, and bids Johnny to get her. Meawhile, Cushing is back as another Van Helsing, who inherited his grandfather's nose for vampire lore and wants to save his own granddaughter from being Dracula's bride.

The mixture of horror and hippie culture sounds fun, and parts are. The opening sequence is one that was in a lot of films in those days, ranging from Blow-Up to What's New, Pussycat?--a rock band does a number, with pretty girls swinging their hips. But the hippie stuff seems tame--we get rock and roll, but no sex and drugs--and the horror seems out of balance. Hammer always took their horror seriously. Unlike Universal, which were products of the silver screen era, Hammer used red, and lots of it.

The showdown between Lee and Cushing makes the movie tolerable. These guys were probably angry that this was how people knew them. At least Lee had a long life after Dracula, and Cushing got to be in Star Wars, but at times it seems like their talent was wasted when you see them in something like this.