The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1978)

The widely despised final outing for Christopher Lee in his most famous role turns out to be much more entertaining than one would imagine. To enjoy the film one must firstly realise the numerous flaws - it's clichéd, in some places boring and plot less, and some parts don't make sense. But once the viewer gets over these obstacles (no small feat) then he'll find himself enjoying this action-cum-horror film from director Alan Gibson, who also blessed us with Dracula A.D. 1972. Indeed, the horror takes a back seat to the typical action we're used to seeing in such television shows as THE AVENGERS. Indeed, Joanna Lumley even stars (replacing Stephanie Beacham from the previous instalment) which makes the film seem even more like an episode of THE NEW AVENGERS than ever. I'm a big fan of '60s and '70s television shows so maybe that explains why I enjoyed this outing so much.The Satanic Rites of Dracula benefits from a superb cast. Christopher Lee is this time a villain who plans world domination as well as his usual fang-sinking exploits, and although he was sick of the role by this stage he is still perfectly adequate at cutting an imposing presence by lurking around with his long black cape and biting people. Peter Cushing's mere presence lifts the film a few notches as he brings back his role of the stern and inherently good Van Helsing, the perfect match for Lee's evil, murderous Dracula. Joanna Lumley provides effective support and Michael Coles is something of a poor man's David Warner (the resemblance is truly uncanny). Freddie Jones enjoys his small role.Included in the plot is a thread about a super plague which is entertaining. There are lots of fight scenes with guards and electronic things exploding (a staple of this decade) as well as shooting for a change (Cushing even takes a slug at one point). Scenes to watch out for are the bit where Cushing visits Lee in his high rise tower block, and Lee speaks with a Bela Lugosi mock accent. There is also a spectacular fiery ending where one man contracts the plague and rots into a black mess while Cushing and Lee lurk about in the forest outside, before Lee gets impaled on a fence post - and dissolves once again! There's a lot of cheesy fun and action to be had from this film, and I enjoyed it a heck of a lot. If you treat it kindly and as a type of cult item then The Satanic Rites of Dracula may just be your cup of tea.

This is the final film Sir Christopher Lee made for Hammer as Dracula, the role that brought him to the attention of so many. Derided by many over the years, not least by its leading actor, and released at a time when interest in Hammer productions had waned considerably, this once more reunited Lee with Peter Cushing as Van Helsing.This was one of the films horror films I ever saw, and I am happy to say I loved it then (when it was shown on television in the late 70s) and I love it now. This is the second time Hammer made a picture featuring Dracula in the modern day, and this time they got it absolutely right. The Count had been secretly recruiting people to his cult for years by the time the story starts, so he is already in a position of power. Living as the reclusive DD Denham, he is very rarely known to leave his tower-block office empire. What better place for a modern day vampire to exist, hiding in plain sight? Van Helsing (and daughter Jessica, now played by Joanna Lumley) is brought in by the police when it appears that Denham doesn't show up in photographs, suggesting something sinister. At first Van Helsing is treated with scepticism, but this changes when it appears The Count, sick of his undead unlife, is planning to sweep a plague across all of the Earth.I love that anyone who comes in to contact with Count's plan dies (Freddie Jones' Professor Keeley is the most memorable); I love that he doesn't dirty his hands with the mundaneness of his mission, rather leaving all that to the various political members of his cult. I love that an effort has actually been made to integrate Dracula into society – even when he is not in the story, he directly influences everything that happens. Equally, his victims are confined to Pelham House, which is not a shambling church or sprawling castle. His seduction/attack on Valerie Van Ost's Jane takes place in a seedy back-room prison, lit only by a swinging bulb. Into that scene Dracula enters, back-lit and surrounded by mist, and his impressive frame lights up the dilapidated chamber and Alan Gibson's fine direction encourages the allurement to be an almost hallucinatory experience.The ending, and Dracula's final dispatch, has also been slated by 'fans', but again, I like it. No elaborate theatrics (that is left to Michael Cole's Inspector Murray's spectacular rescue of Jessica), just two deadly, veteran rivals, slugging it out alone. The hawthorn bush is added to the list of 'all things deadly to a vampire' (it provided Christ with His crown of thorns after all), and that together with a stake through the heart and Hammer's Dracula is gone for good. This final, and significant film, is the only one of the series – and possibly Lee's only picture – that doesn't currently enjoy an official DVD release. There are low quality efforts available, but this surely deserves a release more worthy, allowing more people to re-value it.

Desperation of a series in its death throes, or perhaps just an inventive entry in Hammer's Dracula series that was misunderstood? Well, perhaps The Satanic Rites of Dracula is a little of both. A much better movie than the comically bad Dracula A.D. 1972, this is still, when one weighs it up, inferior to the early Hammer Draculas and 70s audiences must have had a struggle to connect to it's mixture of Vampirism, Satanism and James Bondery, with a good kicking given out to property speculators to boot! Alan Gibson directs with a sure hand, and every sequence is well executed - particularly the cellar full of female vampires section. And of course, there is always Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee to pep things up as Van Helsing and his eternal enemy Count Dracula. There's a rather splendid stand-off scene between the two, when Cushing confronts the property tycoon D.D. Dehham, and one can only wish there was more of this kind of stuff. Lee adopts a splendid Lugosi-like accent here, and Cushing is all steely resolve.They are helped by an agreeably quivering Freddie Jones, William Franklyn - who dies in almost exactly the same way he does in Hammer's Quatermass II - and Joanna Lumley. Michael Coles also returns as the longest-haired police inspector in British movies, and this time out is given somewhat better dialogue than he was in A.D. 72.The plot of course, has a few flaws - why have a sprinkler system where the vampires sleep? When you don't have one where a house-gutting fire later breaks out! On the whole this is a lively and quirky film, with Dracula coming off like a Batman super villain rather than the King Of Vampires, out to infect everyone on Earth with a virulent form of bubonic plague. It's a fun and fast moving affair. And we can saviour Van Helsing against Dracula one last time.

Hammer's second attempt to modernise the Dracula franchise (after the also-flawed-but-enjoyable Dracula AD 1972), 'The Satanic Rites of Dracula' has our good friend the Count (Christopher Lee, of course) inexplicably revived and fraternising among England's elite and powerful who we see in the opening scene performing a, umm, Satanic Rite and who the police soon begin investigating. What follows is a plot which starts as a hard-boiled 70s TV detective story and ends on an oddly James Bond note when the scope of Dracula's dastardly plan is revealed. In between these two extremes lurks a few minutes of traditional Hammer fare when Van Helsing (Peter Cushing, of course) is drafted in as an occult expert. For these brief moments, Cushing's class threatens to redeem the film but Cushing is not a Bond type hero and the potentially intriguing head-to-head with Dracula and the climax itself both quickly lose tension. As such, along with its pointless and go-nowhere Satanic "theme" (probably just an excuse for some tit shots), the film is a confused heap.The film was released in the same year as 'The Exorcist' which in its re-envisioning of Horror beckoned quite authoritatively the next pendulum swing of the genre back across the pond having been in blighty since the late 1950s and Hammer's own 'The Curse of Frankenstein' (1957) and the studio's first stab at the legend with 'Dracula' (1958). It is interesting to note that Christopher Lee is the actor who put in the most performances as the immortal count and with 'The Satanic Rites of Dracula' finally hung up his cape. This wasn't to stop Hammer releasing the kung-fu vampire movie 'The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires' the following year – which, needless to say, I haven't seen.