Classic Horrors Club

It breaks my heart to write this. Dracula, Prince of Darkness (1966) has never been one of my favorite Hammer Dracula films, but I’ve wanted to revisit it for years now to see if my opinion has changed. I gave it four stars on IMDb (below average on my scale) on November 3, 2008, and after watching it again recently, I wouldn’t increase that by even a smidge. In fact, it wasn’t just that I passively didn’t like it; I actively disliked it.

I appreciate the fact that it’s a direct sequel to Dracula (1958), aka Horror of Dracula. However, by recapping the story with clips from its spectacular conclusion, Dracula, Prince of Darkness offers nothing comparably exciting. At times, I was bored, partially because Dracula himself (Christopher Lee) does not appear until halfway through the movie. Contrary to prevailing memories, neither the character nor the actor has much screen time in any Hammer Dracula film, but here his absence is noticeable.

It doesn’t help that he doesn’t speak. Much has been written about that and there are differing explanations. The visual action should compensate for the absence of sound, but for me, it only drew attention to it. In fact, there’s a scene where Dracula pops his head through a window that feels unnatural, and not in the good way. Lee still presents an imposing presence, but it doesn’t go far enough with this appearance.

Don’t get me wrong; there are parts of the movie I enjoyed. I found more humor than expected in the screenplay by John Sansom, aka Jimmy Sangster. Overall, though, it’s a miss, which causes me to hypothesize that Sangster writes Frankenstein movies better than Dracula movies. I mean, this is his only proper Dracula screenplay. He wrote The Brides of Dracula (1960) sans the Count.

If the titular character is squandered, what about poor Father Sandor (Andrew Keir)? With Peter Cushing’s Van Helsing a no-show, this was the perfect opportunity to develop a new character. Sandor had promise. In fact, in early 1980s issues of the UK publication “House of Hammer,” then later “Warrior,” he’s featured in a comic strip anthology as a priest fighting all kinds of demons.

This begs a larger question. We say that the Hammer Frankenstein films are about the human, not the monster, and that the Hammer Dracula films are about the monster, not the human. What if that’s not true? What if the Dracula films are also about the human, specifically Van Helsing. Theoretically, his absence could affect the DNA of the film, making it a lesser production.

On the other hand, I liked Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970) three stars more than Prince of Darkness, and Cushing/Van Helsing isn’t in that one, either. Perhaps it’s just the eight-year gap between Lee/Dracula appearances and it would take some time for him to get his groove back. I’ve also said that my Hammer sweet spot is the 1970s, so maybe I prefer the inventive, albeit sometimes wacky situations in which they placed him in later films.

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