Dracula, Prince of Darkness (1966)

This is the third film in Hammer Studios' Dracula series (after The Horror of Dracula and The Brides of Dracula) and the second to feature Christopher Lee in the role of Count Dracula. Sadly, however, Peter Cushing, who played Dracula's eternal nemesis Van Helsing in the first two films does not reprise his role here again (we only see a replay of his last confrontation with Dracula from The Horror of Dracula). Still, Dracula has quite an enemy in down-to-earth, gun-toting Father Sandor, played with the perfect amount of gusto, old-school manliness, and righteousness by Andrew Keir. In fact, except possibly Christopher Lee, Keir has the most presence of all the characters, even the central protagonists. He's not your typical Old World vampire-chaser (the opening scenes of the film after the replay of the Van-Helsing/Dracula battle makes that beautifully clear), but he also serves a refreshing contrast to the upper-class uptightness and naivete of the English tourists.

As for the tourists themselves, they mostly carry on the proud tradition set by Jonathan Harker by being fairly bland. While most people would take issue with this, it does convey the sense that these people are way over their heads, not just in running in with Dracula, but in leaving their cozy 19th century manors to enter a quasi-medieval world of superstition, violence, and absolute uncertainty, a world embodied in Dracula himself. Just as it took Science (embodied in Stoker's Van Helsing) to destroy Dracula in the novel, so does it take Keir's hardness and ties to the "Old World" to save the dulled, colorless modern people. The only one among them who gets an inkling of what's going down is the overly hysterical Helen, who began the film as aloft and dismissing. Of course, her cheerful, rational, optimistic companions (they're tourists after all...and English at that, so whatever could go wrong?) ignore her completely, most especially her husband. So guess who's the first to die to provide blood for Dracula's rebirth? It's also interesting to note that it's Helen who becomes Dracula's first victim and is transformed by him from a nervous prude into a sultry vampire.

Eventually the surviving couple is pursued by Dracula and join forces with Father Sandor in destroying him, which results in betrayl, seduction, an abduction, a carriage chase against the setting sun reminiscent of the novel, and a climax which has Dracula destroyed with an anti-vampiric method little referenced to in most vampire films. Ultimately, this is a solid, if not especially memoriable, horror film, greatly strengthened by Kier's acting and Lee's presence (sadly, Lee was unable-or unwilling-to speak any dialogue), although it still doesn't hold a candle to The Horror of Dracula...but then again, what does?