Dracula: The Prince of Darkness (dir. Terence Fisher, 1966)
In terms of structure, Dracula: Prince of Darkness feels even more old-fashioned than its two predecessors. The story is essentially the same as all of the Old Dark House movies from England which were so in vogue in the 1930s thanks to, well, James Whale’s 1932 film The Old Dark House. The story, as spoofed in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, involves an innocent couple or a group of people stumbling upon the titular house at night where odd goings-on are going on. It’s a dark and stormy night, and the denizens of the Old Dark House typically end up murdering or corrupting their visitors. The lesson of these movies seems to be the same as any yokel-themed horror movie to come out of the U.S.: i.e. don’t ever leave the city. In America, remote, rural people want to kill and eat you. In England, it’s crumbling inbred aristocrats. The idea is the same.
The innocents in question are the Kents: Charles and Diana (Francis Matthews and Suzan Farmer) and Helen and Alan (Barbara Shelley and Charles “Bud” Tingwell). The Old Dark House they stumble upon is Dracula’s castle. Dracula, it has been established, has been dead for 10 years. Everyone knows that Dracula is dead, but they’re still afraid to go near his castle. The place is being looked after by a mysterious ghoulish man named Klove (Philip Latham) who looks after the place while the master is away.
Of course Klove has a plan to resurrect Dracula, and the resurrection scene is really, really cool. Klove kills one of our visiting party (yeah, he wastes no time!), and dangles him by his feet over a sarcophagus full of Dracula’s ashes. He then slits the corpse’s throat, and the gallons of blood are absorbed by the ashes, regenerating Dracula’s body. That guy is hard to keep down. Although it may not have completed the job. Although Dracula (Christopher Lee) is still as tall and menacing, and still wears his signature cape and ring, he doesn’t speak. Lee only has one line in Prince of Darkness, and it’s “Auuugghhh!”
Van Helsing is nowhere to be seen, and the righteous holy warrior this time is the stern and imposing Fr. Sandor (Andrew Keir). Sandor is a kickass monk who likes to hunt, and who comes across as a dignified version of Paul Bunyan. Large, bearded and forthright, you would almost expect Brian Blessed in the role. He also knows how to deal with vampires, and knows a vampire when he sees one; he rescues a dead non-vampire from being staked in the film’s opening. There aren’t enough kickass monks outside of kung-fu movies.
The climax is really cool. Sandor manages to trap Dracula in a coffin and pack it on a coach. The coffin falls off of the coach and lands on the surface of a frozen lake. Sandor shoots the ice underneath Dracula, and he falls into the frozen water. Running water, it turns out, also harms vampires, and Dracula is presumably dead.
But we, horror scholars that we are, certainly know better, don’t we? Indeed, there are six more films to go in this franchise. Be sure to come back next week as I cover next next three films: Dracula Has Risen from the Grave, Taste the Blood of Dracula, and Scars of Dracula. We’ll be tipping into the 1970s at that point, and we’ll see the evolution of Hammer class into dub schlock. Until then, stay hypnotized.
Witney Seibold is a featured contributor on the CraveOnline Film Channel, and co-host of The B-Movies Podcast. You can read his weekly articles Trolling, Free Film School and The Series Project, and follow him on “Twitter” at @WitneySeibold, where he is slowly losing his mind.
