1960
Director- Terence Fisher
Cast- Peter Cushing, Yvonne Monlaur, David Peel, Martita
Hunt, Freda Jackson, Andrée Melly, Marie Devereux
Marianne (Yvonne
Monlaur) finds herself stranded in a rural town when the coach inexplicably
leaves her behind. A local aristocrat, the Baroness Meinster, offers her
shelter at her castle. Marianne accepts the invitation but quickly regrets it.
The Baroness says she lives alone, but Marianne sees a young man in the castle.
He says that he is the Baron, the
Baroness’ son, and is being held against his will. Marianne helps him escape
and tragedy soon follows. He kills his mother, flees the castle and the
servant, Greta, seems to have gone mad.
Marianne
leaves the castle and is found by another traveler, Dr. Van Helshing (Peter
Cushing, reprising his role from Horror of Dracula). He connects her story to
the death of a young girl in the village and suspects that he knows what is
happening. He puts Marianne up in a boarding home for girls and sets out to confirm
his suspicions. He finds that the recently deceased village girl (the buxom
Marie Devereux ) has risen from the grave as a vampire, helped by the mad
Greta. He also finds that the Baroness has returned to life herself, turned
into a vampire by her own son!
The
Baron, hiding his vampiric identity , finds Marianne and convinces her to marry
him. He also stalks another girl in the home (Andrée Melly) and turns her into
a vampire. He is quite prolific in creating new undead! Van Helsing warns
Marianne that her boyfriend is a vampire and then goes out to hunt them. He
gets cornered, three on one, and in a rare defeat, the vampires get the upper
hand on Van Helsing.
The Baron chokes him out and
when Van Helsing comes to, he is sporting a fresh bite on his neck. In what has
to be one of the most hardcore scenes in any vampire movie, Van Helsing throws
an iron into hot coals and heats it until it’s glowing red and then brands the
side of his neck in an attempt to treat the wound! Of course, this is Peter
Cushing, so you know that he is somehow going to sort these vampires out in the
end.
So the first thing you’ll
notice is that despite lots of brides, there is no Dracula. The film was originally
intended to be Disciple of Dracula, with the Count making a short appearance to
help introduce a new vampire. In the rewrite phase this was changed. This was
the first sequel to Horror of Dracula and it would be 6 more years before
another sequel (Dracula, Prince of Darkness) would come along. With that film,
Christopher Lee would become the face of the franchise. It seems like, at least
in the beginning, that the plan was for Cushing to be the star.
I think the movie itself has
taken a back seat to the later Hammer vampire films that were bloodier and
sexier, but this film has a lot to recommend it. First, there is the
aforementioned scene where Van Helsing brands himself. It also brings up some
rarely explored themes. If we except (and I think we have to) that the vampire
bite is a symbol representing sexual penetration, then this movie give us the
taboo of a son turning his own mother into a vampire. We also see a male
vampire bite a male victim, something that is still not seen that often
compared to a “heterosexual” bite. It also gives us a lot of vampires and
Hammer starlets. Though Marie Devereux didn’t get much chance to show off how
beautiful she was, Andrée Melly, created some of the most recognizable images
of any Hammer starlet. Her vampire is unique and memorable with her wide mouth
and bright, wild eyes. Truly beautiful!
I will always love the more
salacious Hammer films of late 1960’s and early 1970’s, but there is still room
to enjoy the more classic feel of this film. Watch it to see the master vampire
hunter in action.
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