31 DAYS OF HORROR 2022 - Day 24: DRACULA A.D. 1972 (1972)

 

In 1872, Count Dracula (Christopher Lee) and his arch-enemy, Lawrence Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) engage in final combat, resulting in Dracula being fatally impaled on the spoke of a wagon wheel of the couch the pair battle upon. 

 

Van Helsing also perishes, but one of Dracula's followers — Seriously, why would anyone follow that bastard of their own volition? — retrieves the Count's remains and inters them near Van Helsing's grave at St, Bartolph's Church in England.

Oh, those wacky kids of early '70's London...

Fast forward by 100 years, to a London just exiting the swinging Sixties and now wallowing in the grooviness on the early 1970's. Jessica Van Helsing (Stephanie Beacham), granddaughter of Lorrimer Van Helsing (Peter Cushing again), attends a hippie-populated party where she meets Johnny Alucard (Christopher Neame), who appears to be the person who spirited away Drac's remains a century previous.  Alucard convinces Jessica and her friends to join him at the abandoned, deconsecrated St. Bartolph's Church, and if you have been paying attention during all of the previous entries in Hammer's Dracula franchise, you know exactly where all of this is going. Unfortunately, this is the point where Hammer's Dracula run, which had been teetering on and off for a while, finally gives up the ghost and plunges headlong into inescapable bad sequel territory.

Kensington gore and Caroline Munro as an altar: two great tastes that taste great together.

First of all, one of my pet gripes when it comes to vampire movies in general and Dracula movies in particular is when the writer's haul out the "Alucard" alias and think that it's clever. That one has been tired since Universal deployed it for SON OF DRACULA, and as of that film I have taken the use of "Alucard" as a harbinger of dire cinematic proceedings. This film's "Johnny Alucard" is unintentionally hilariously over the top, and he made me laugh out loud whenever he did or said pretty much anything. He's ridiculous and made me want to see what he got up to, but his presence can't have been intended to be as silly as it ended up being.

Say what you want for the rest of this misbegotten film, but Christpher Neame's turn as "Johnny Alucard" is a classic bit of unintentional (?) camp.

Second, while it was becoming clear that the times were a-changing and the once-edgy signature Hammer flavor of Gothic locales, heaving bosoms, and lashings of "Kensington gore were being rendered old hat by the more extreme horror entries from all over the world. The horrors of Vietnam and the Manson Family murders being broadcast on the nightly news opened our eyes to true hideousness, so Hammer's flavor was destined to be seen as quaint in the wake of ultra-nasty horror fare such as BLOOD FEAST (1963), 2000 MANIACS (1964), and THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT (1972). Since Gothic was out, perhaps switching settings then-modern day London seemed like a good idea, but in no uncertain terms that creative decision drove a stake through the heart of Hammer horror and doused the corpse with a gallon of holy water.

I suppose most of the cast was game enough, but not even the presence of Peter Cushing, returning to the Dracula fold after too long an absence, and the lovely Caroline Munro save this from being a rote and instantly-dated attempt at being "down with the kids. And Christopher Lee, while always welcome as Dracula, looks visibly bored throughout.

"Do you like my ring? You can have it if you let me out of this turkey...

That said, the worst was yet to come...

Poster for the U.K. Theatrical release. Even Dracula looks goofy...