Horror of Dracula

Beautifully shot piece of Hammer hokum. So many people are getting hung up about the fact the plot veers away from Stoker's book. Well, good, read it again and tell me the ending of the novel isn't pretty damned poor.

What the hell have they done to Dracula?! I wasn't expecting an exact replica of the classic book but it seems like they left nothing intact! As a die-hard Dracula fan I was willing to give a little leeway but this is ridiculous. Admittedly Christopher Lee is creepy in a good way as Dracula but I could hardly bear to finish the film!

This represents the beginning of the famous Hammer Studio and also their famous Cushing/Lee Dracula series of films which stretched from this 1958 release into the early 1970s ( by which time, admittedly, they had gone downhill:(

But this film ( simply titled 'Dracula' in the UK) is probably their best. And it is a very good film in its own right.

I am surprised that it took Hammer several years, till around the mid-60s I think, to produce the first sequel----another excellent offering called 'Dracula, Prince Of Darkness'.

This 1958 Dracula has to be compared with all the original Universal movies of the 1930s (often with Bela Lugosi) as well as all the other Dracula films which have been made from then until the present day. There have been some pretty good films, with some pretty good stars such as Louis Jourdan and Gary Oldman ( to name my favourite 'modern' performers of the role).

But, for me, Christopher Lee will always be the definitive Dracula, the one that everyone else has to match.

And, IMHO, nobody has yet matched him although scores have attempted the role.

Hammer Films were almost a national institution in Britain, just as Ealing had been before them-----and just as the Carry On films were national treasures ( albeit in the comedy genre rather than horror-----though some of the later ones were pretty horrific LOL).

The colour, the sets, the feeling that you were actually in Transylvania------nobody quite did it like Hammer.

And Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee became synonymous with the roles of Van Helsing and the Count.

There were some very good sequels through the 60s and early 70s featuring this pairing. The first 4 or 5 were good stuff, but ----as with the Carry On films of the same cinema era------they went badly downhill by the 70s, and Cushing and Lee would no longer play the roles on offer.

It was the end of an era, and the end of Hammer. Interestingly, the studio was revived a couple of years ago and I watched their first offerings with great anticipation----they were rubbish, and merely used the same name as the great Studio of the late 50s to early 70s. Pity.

This Dracula film is a must for all fans of the genre ----and a good watch for any viewer who likes well-made films or British Cinema of the period.

And I have completed this review without any joke about 'fangs for the memories etc' . And I did so without the BAT of an eyelid :)))))))))))))

A recommended film from the greatest British horror studio.

Been looking to see this for ages classic hammer horror,although the title of the Movie is horror of Dracula this was titled for the american audience we had the title as just Dracula. Still fantastic atmospheric sets and gloomy Set peices make this in my opinion the definitive vampire Movie enjoy

It's the first time I've seen this version of Dracula, and I must admit he looks like a silly tart. Louis Jordan's 'Count Dracula' (1977) is much better.