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Taste The Blood Of Dracula
[Hammer/WB]
1969; color
Directed by Peter Sasdy
Starring: Christopher Lee, Linda Hayden, Anthony Corlan, Geoffrey Keen, John Carson & Peter Sallis
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At the film's onset we are introduced to a horse driven carriage clip clopping it's way to who knows where, accompanied by an appropriately ominous soundtrack. Once we're transported to the inside of said shaky vehicle we meet three gentleman. One a fat unpleasant looking guy who is an antique dealer of sorts and two other not as fat unpleasant looking guys who don't talk about themselves in the two minutes they appear in the movie so we don't know what their deal is. Except the one guy seems to be mildly retarded. To pass the time / attempt to drum up some business, the fat guy shows the other guys one of the fruits of his recent buying excursions, a snow globe, which fascinates the mildly retarded guy. Not enough for him to want to purchase it, but enough to anger him into pushing the fat guy out the back door of the carriage (who even knew carriages had back doors?) when he won't turn over the tacky souvenir for free. They do throw the guy's luggage out the door behind him though, which I thought was a nice gesture. At any rate, the toss knocks the fat guy out I guess because the next thing you know, the full moon is in full bloom and we see the fella coming to. He gathers up his belongings and starts wandering about. He seems to get a bit freaked out by the noise of the natural inhabitants of his surroundings but once he hears a horrible human scream he really starts to sweat. (Literally.) He takes off in the direction of the commotion but is startled by another horrible scream, followed by another. The man stumbles, falls, and finds himself witnessing a scene witnessed by anyone who saw the previous entry into the Hammer Dracula series, Dracula Has Risen From The Grave. Of course, in the original version after Dracula falls out of the window and lands on the pointy cross that just so happened to be laying around the perimeter of the building he turns to dust, thus signaling the end of the film. In this version, the version they decided to write this fat dude written into, the Count writhes around for a minute trying to remove the cross from his back / front while the guy watches in horror. Then he drips blood from his eye sockets a la Alice Cooper (or, if you prefer, Hank Von Helvette) before turning to a red gooey, gloppy, granulated mess. Which quickly, and conveniently, turns to red powder. At which point the fat guy becomes unfrightened enough that the entrepreneurial wheels start turning in his head and he goes in for a closer look. He picks up a gold something or other (pocketwatch? amulet? I'm not sure) lying on the now empty cape and wipes the blood from it's face to reveal what we all saw coming a mile away, an inscription that simply reads Dracula. (Which cracks me up! Who knew the living dead were into such details.) At this point we meet three other unsavory characters in the form of a trio of bored rich fellas looking for some new kind of kick. They, in turn, meet a guy who is rumored to be a Satanist at their brothel of choice... the four of them wind up in the shop of the fat guy who robbed Dracula's non-grave... and we all know what happens after that right? Well, if not, Christopher Lee comes back to life - again - and seeks his revenge on the men who now possess his wordly possessions. Oh and he vampirizes their daughters on the way. You know, pretty much the standard vampire movie stuff. This isn't the best of the series, nor does it offer a particularly unique storyline, but it moves along fairly quickly and, again, has all the classic benchmarks of a classic Dracula movie so fans of the genre would probably enjoy this.
—Bunny
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