BroadcastChic
Excellent, a Must See
Twilightfa
Watch something else. There are very few redeeming qualities to this film.
Ortiz
Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.
petrelet
This is really not a very good movie.It is nowhere near the quality of the 1931 film and at times it is so confused that it approaches Ed Wood levels; and Wood's characters were seldom as lacking in energy and intention as the characters here.The one thing I will give it credit for is the frank sexual aspect that it gives to the vampiric relationship between Christopher Lee's Dracula and his female victims, and I have given it an extra star or two on that account. Although that makes the movie pretty much a celebration of rape fantasies: the tall virile man dominates his prey! The woman is ashamed and fearful, but she thinks only of his coming to her bed! etc.In order to claim that this movie is of higher quality than I've indicated, some process other than normal evaluation must be in play. Perhaps one feels that because this movie played an important part in the history of the Hammer studio and its Dracula franchise, it deserves to be uprated just because of its historical significance? I don't think that's how it works.The story is nowhere near as well thought out as the Abbott and Costello monster movies always were. I will rant about geography for a few sentences just to make my point. The Stoker novel begins in Transylvania; the Count voyages to London; then it ends up in Transylvania again. This is a lot of unnecessary traveling, so the 1931 movie (based on an earlier play) starts in Transylvania and then just has all of the conflict take place in London.The Hammer film decides to save on travel even more, by putting all the action into a sort of tiny space-warped Europe-themed park, at one end of which is Klausenburg (the capital of Transylvania) and at the other of which is Karlstadt, a German city populated by English people, which is 800 miles from Transylvania on the map of Europe but only about 20 miles away in this movie, a brief carriage ride away. You may think this is a picky point, but my real point is that any middle-school student would come up with a geographical approach that made more sense. The middle-school screenwriter would also have more of a sense of the do's and don'ts of vampire-hunting: for example, when you have only a few minutes before sunset to go and kill vampires, don't waste time writing about it in your miserable journal! (In fact it seems that Harker could have just dispatched Dracula in the first minute of this movie if he had had any gumption.)The middle-school screenwriter might think that the male characters should devote more attention to actually preventing the female ones from being killed and converted to vampires, and to care more if they fail in it. But I can't blame that entirely on the screenplay; the blame for the characters' languid attitude has to be shared by the actors and director as well.Much of the vampire-chasing action involves Dracula running out of rooms in order to come back in and make an entrance, taking no thought for the time of day or presence of windows (why does he even have windows in his castle, why hasn't he boarded them up in 600 years). Meanwhile his opponents act as if crucifixes and garlic cost their weight in diamonds, and decline to deploy them as they should. I could go on in this regard, but it isn't worth it.
chaswe-28402
Some years ago it was written that "Lee and Cushing are the only Dracula and Helsing on the cinematic map, in the hall of fame, and I can't see them ever being bettered." That is the general and overwhelming consensus on this site, although there are still a few laughable retards in their habitual denial.Dracula and van Helsing, in this version, are unbelievably real. They are totally convincing. Van Helsing is the archetypal Victorian ethical gentleman, courteous, considerate, dauntlessly resolute, athletic and well-informed. Dracula is the pagan defeated demon from immemorial ages past, a fiendish but superbly imposing nobleman from a forgotten age.The acting support is adequate if not great, though memorably good are Woodbridge, the surly landlord; Malleson, the jolly undertaker; the corruptible customs official; Mina (or Lucy) and the little girl. The geography is distinctly vague. An excellent anachronistic touch is the bottle of Gordon's gin in the inn's uncertain locality, just the kind of familiar everyday British product you'd expect to find in Transylvania --- if that's where this is.I've seen some of the other versions, and they are all totally forgettable. This one is indelible. You could say it has permanent bite; and the plot holes are legion but quite irrelevant.
GManfred
Someone here recorded it, so I thought, 'what the heck'. This was a big surprise, as it was good! Ordinarily I would have passed on it, having seen other films like it which were junk movies, pure and simple. But the main role went to Peter Cushing playing Helsing, the vampire slayer (I borrowed that from a current popular entity), and I can report that neither he nor Christopher Lee overacted or hammed it up as they did in other over-the-top horror films. The story moved along, the color was natural and the plot was (almost) plausible, never descending into vaudeville. Good supporting acting and a thoroughly refreshing dip into the horror genre make this one worth recommending.
Eric Stevenson
I guess I'm not the biggest Dracula fan out there, but I still appreciate all the many movie versions out there. This is one of my favorites, although it is hard to tell if I liked this more than the classic Bela Lugosi version. I guess my problem with that was that it was too anti-climatic. This, on the other hand, has a lot more action, but it unfortunately doesn't have nearly as much Dracula. Off the top of my head, I guess I'd probably say this version is better. It's mostly because of the side characters.I was seriously not expecting Dracula's bride to die so soon. I wasn't expecting her to try to attack Jonathan Parker either. I was confused because Van Helsing was advertised as being featured prominently, but it turns out Parker was just a decoy protagonist. Peter Cushing does a great job and I really do love the atmosphere of this movie. About half of it is devoted to a hunt for Dracula. I am sad that Christopher Lee wasn't on screen more! It still creates a powerful story with intelligent conversations and a good set up with the mythology of such a classic character. ***1/2
