Dracula Has Risen From The Grave

Stake Out

Dracula Has Risen
From The Grave
UK 1968
Directed by Freddie Francis
Hammer/Warner Archive
Blu Ray Zone A

Warning: Some spoilers rising from the grave.

Dracula Has Risen From The Grave is the fourth of the Hammer Dracula cycle of films and the first to be directed by someone other than Terence Fisher, after his initial salvo of Dracula (aka Horror Of Dracula, reviewed here), Brides Of Dracula (reviewed here) and Dracula Prince Of Darkness (reviewed here). I relatively recently read a book which stated that director Freddie Francis didn’t like directing the gothic variations of the films and that it certainly showed in his direction. Well, I dunno, maybe I’m a bit of a Philistine but I found this one to be a really good entry in the series and it kept me enthralled all the way through... which is perhaps more than I could say for Brides Of Dracula, to be honest.

From the start we have a credits sequence backed by a strong James Bernard score, cementing the musical language of his previous Dracula entries and also using a phrase which is almost, not quite, the Dies Irae... pretty much a parody of it but I’m sure that’s what the composer must have had in mind here. This is followed by a strong opening where a young, mute cleaner of a church rings the bell, only for no sound to come out and his hands to be stained with blood. An investigation finds a woman with a vampire bite stuffed into the bell, dropping down (following a shoe) at just the right moment to hang dramatically for the camera. Though exactly how Dracula was supposed to have killed her in a church full of crosses is anybody’s guess.

And then we have Rupert Davies playing Monsignor Muller, visiting the village near Castle Dracula a year after his supposed demise under the ice in the previous film, signifying that the opening took place sometime before those events. Now, mark that time scale because he says more than once that it’s been 12 months since Dracula’s death. He goes to find out why the local priest has an empty church with no congregation and it’s because the shadow of Castle Dracula touches the building at certain parts of day so, he and the less than enthusiastic priest take a day’s trek up the mountain (a time considerably longer than it takes both Dracula and the hero of the piece to get there towards the end of the movie) so the Monsignor can ‘exorcise’ the castle. The wimpier priest doesn’t go the whole way and while the Monsignor seals the church with a big cross... the other priest falls on the ice and cracks it open where Dracula is buried (that running water in the moat has magically moved his body somewhat ‘down mountain’ it has to be said) and his blood revives the Count, played once more with considerably more enthusiasm, in this outing, by Christopher Lee. The second priest becomes Dracula’s slave. They steal a coffin and follow the Monsignor cross country to his hometown where Dracula spends the rest of the movie trying to exact his revenge by biting up the Monsignor’s daughter Maria, played by Veronica Carlson and, generally getting in the way of her atheist boyfriend Paul, played by Barry Andrews (who was in Blood On Satan’s Claw, which I reviewed here and who looks somewhat like a long, thin version of Roger Daltrey).

The actors are all very good but it has to be said that all their scenes are stolen from them by the actor and actress playing two supporting characters. We have Hammer stalwart Michael Ripper playing Paul’s dad and he’s just a joy to watch. We also have the amazing Barbara Ewing as the saucy barmaid working for Michael Ripper, where Paul works part-time as a cook while studying to become a doctor. He has a row with the Monsignor because he admits he is an atheist but, of course, by the end of the movie, when he’s battled the forces of darkness, he makes a sign of the cross over Dracula’s body (which has fallen and become impaled on a crucifix), showing that he now believes in God and can marry Maria with the Monsignor’s approval.

It’s nicely shot and there seems to be a lot of very colourful lightning in some of Dracula’s scenes. There also seems to be a lot more cleavage on display in the picture at this point in Hammer’s history, as typified by Barbara Ewing’s costume. Although, why the audience is asked to believe that a very thin leather collar around her neck would actually hide the appalling vampire bite scars she has is beyond me.

Points of interest are... once you think Dracula is finished, after Paul has half heartedly staked him, you learn just how ‘half heartedly’ because he gets up, writhes around a bit and just pulls the stake from himself... which I think is the first time this was done in a Hammer Dracula film. Later on, when he is finally restaked by falling on the upright cross, we get the famous shot of his bleeding from the sides of both eyes, which of course has been parodied and homaged a lot over the years (perhaps the most famous steal from this that springs to mind is with the death of Go Go Yubari in Tarantino’s Kill Bill Part One).

One big criticism I have of this is the continuity. As I revisit these Hammer Dracula films I realise they pay the same care and attention that Universal must have taken with their early Mummy franchise. That is to say, absolutely none at all. The previous film was set in 1895 and, we know from the words of the Monsignor that it’s been a year since Dracula’s demise in the ice. And yet, when Dracula and his new slave priest steal a coffin, the date on it reads 1885 - 1905 so, yeah, a complete contradiction, it has to be said. Also, the close ups of Christopher Lee’s eyes in this aren’t consistent from scene to scene. Sometimes the whites are stained blood red, for the earlier scenes but, by the end the whites of his eyes are very clean and clearly visible... so that’s another problem, I feel.

However, these quibbles aside... and I’ll leave it up to the reader to evaluate whether they are just minor quibbles or franchise shaking errors... I have to say I had a really good time with Dracula Has Risen From The Grave and would say it’s one of the better films in a franchise which, I think it’s fair to say, has its ups and downs. Definitely recommended to fans of the genre and company and certainly one of my favourite performances by Sir Chris Lee in the role. Looking forward to seeing the next one in the series again soon.

Hammer Horror - The Warner Brothers Years

We’re Warner Git You Sucka!

Hammer Horror -
The Warner Brothers Years
2018 USA Directed by Marcus Hearn
Screened 26th August at FrightFest 2018

Hammer Horror - The Warner Brothers Years is the latest in a series of documentary films written by the director, Marcus Hearn, about certain sections of British cinema and TV heritage from times gone by. He has written a number of books, too, on his specialist areas of interest such as, amongst others... Amicus Studios, The Avengers, Doctor Who and, of course, Hammer Studios. So he’s definitely one of the main people you could want researching, writing and directing a documentary like this which, it has to be said, certainly has a very specific, honed down subject matter. That being the films Hammer made with money flowing to them from Warner Brothers/Seven Arts. This was during the last ten or so years of the original studio’s last hurrah although, there were also other films being made with other distributors before, during and after this which obviously don’t get much of a mention here.

So this one doesnt quite cover the last few years of Hammer’s descent into non-existence (in that particular incarnation) but it does show them as they are attempting to change the way their movies are produced and in turn perceived by a target audience that was clearly changing. So this covers mostly films such as Taste The Blood of Dracula, Dracula AD 1972, The Satanic Rites of Dracula, Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed, The Legend Of The Seven Golden Vampires but doesn’t talk about some of their films with other distributors in which they were also trying to have a hand in changing their image, so to speak.

The film is, as you would expect, as series of talking head shots of various surviving creators and actors/actresses such as Veronica Carlson, John Carson, Madeline Smith, Peter Sasdy and the incomparable Caroline Munro, all interspersed with clips from the movies (and even rare behind the scenes footage) and interviews with such modern experts on the phenomena including author Jonathan Rigby, director Joe Dante and Sir Christopher Frayling.

There is a lot on offer here with, perhaps, not a lot of time to cover the ground the documentary so obviously wanted to try and get to. Consequently, I’m sure most people will find that not enough of their favourite movie from this, admittedly, somewhat short selection of films is being covered... which is not particularly a fair criticism, to be sure, because you’re always going to get that kind of thing happening. For instance, for me personally, there were some issues with the documentary which really only rang true for me and I’m sure everyone will have a very personal response to what has been covered.

Caroline Munro states here that a lot of people are warming up to Dracula AD 1972 after it coming under fire a lot over the decades and even in Kim Newman’s introductory interview with Marcus Hearn before the film screened, he put in a good word for it. I dunno, I somehow found it hard to believe that, despite the treatment of the gothic, church bound Dracula in this movie, which various interviewees rightly pointed out, none of the people in the documentary realised that Dracula AD 1972 is, indeed, the greatest Hammer Dracula film (followed closely by The Satanic Rites of Dracula and Taste The Blood Of Dracula). It might also have been nice to get Michael Kitchen’s view on his role in Dracula AD 1972 too, I think but... maybe it’s not a film he looks back on as fondly as some others.

And while I’m on the subject of that particular film, nobody in the documentary addressed the glaring continuity problems with the Van Helsing character created by the opening, pre-credits sequence in Dracula AD 1972 and the later movie The Legend Of The Seven Golden Vampires. Neither did anyone address the astonishing differences between the two actresses playing the character of Jessica Van Helsing in the two movies... Stephanie Beacham and Joanna Lumley. Nor indeed why that transformation occurred in the first place.

Another problem for me was the relatively short amount of time spent on Moon Zero Two (reviewed by me here) and When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth. The latter because it’s one I’ve never got around to seeing and I’m kinda interested in it and the former because, frankly, asides from the various Quatermass adaptations that Hammer did, I personally think Moon Zero Two is their next best movie. I would have loved to have had more insight into the making of that one, to be honest and, also, the way that I suspect it must have influenced Gerry Anderson when he came to make his live action TV show, Space 1999.

All this being said, Hearn clearly knows which noggins to tap for this particular story and it was truly a pleasure to watch the likes of Frayling and Rigby talk about some of this stuff at a variety of locations including the Cinema Museum and the Natural History Museum. It was also great that Hearn managed to talk to Peter Sasdy, who I don’t quite recall seeing before in one of these kinds of productions. In fact, one of the things Hearn pointed out in his introductory interview with Kim Newman before the movie played was that with the Hammer films of this period, now, it really is almost a race against time because at some point all the people who have first hand knowledge of working on these things will depart this earthly plane.

The one thing which did surprise me a little is that, given some of the books I’ve read about Hammer over the years (including some by Hearn, no doubt), there was only a hint of the problems behind the scenes with the various producers and studio heads at Hammer at that time. The death of the company was looming but it was perhaps not quite as chaotic or damning at the time these particular films were made to really taint the story of this period with the negativity which would later engulf the studio and rip it from this world. I did, however, notice a certain resistance on the part of some of the interviewees who starred in these films in that they weren’t all that enamoured of the direction that Hammer was taking but, as others pointed out both in the film and in the pre-screening talk, it was definitely something Hammer had to do. Hammer was being perceived as a somehow cosy and toothless brand of horror compared to some of the other, American, bigger budget horror movies which were coming out at the time and they really did need to change the way they wrote and produced these kinds of 'dark fantasies'. After all, as this film points out, 1973 was also the year when The Exorcist hit cinemas and so Hammer really were beginning to be perceived as the quaint, cutesy alternate to what I’m sure many people of the time were thinking was ‘real horror’. Alas, it becomes obvious at some point that they clearly weren’t doing enough to change their approach and it’s also made abundantly clear in the documentary that, when Warner Brothers withdrew their money and support from Hammer, it was the beginning of the end for the company that had fairly recently won the Queen’s award for best British exports.

As the director himself pointed out in his introduction to the film at FrightFest, this documentary is really an attempt to put together an ‘extra feature’ which is sadly absent from various Hammer DVDs and Blu Rays and it certainly has the look and feel of other extras he’s been involved with (and yes, it does often reference Mike Vicker’s main title score to Dracula AD 1972 throughout... a bit of a go to track for a lot of ‘Swinging Hammer’ documentary spots, it seems to me). That’s certainly fine with this audience member, though, as it’s solidly entertaining and certainly informative in a few places to boot. If you’re an admirer of the Hammer Horror brand with a fondness for this period in their celluloid history then Hammer Horror - The Warner Brothers Years is probably something that you need to see. I, for one, hope the director might consider doing another such documentary on some of the other films that Hammer was producing at that time, sometime in the near future before the well of the legacy of talent dries up.


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