Dracula: Prince of Darkness (movie)

Cover of Dracula - Prince of Darkness

Dracula: Prince of Darkness is one of those horror movies where the characters are so stupid that you wonder how have they managed to survive for the thirty odd years of their lives. In real life, people of similar intelligence would have choked to death while playing with plastic bags. The only rational explanation for their existence so far is that they were brought up in padded cells, till someone left the door open, and all of them decided to have a vacation in Transylvania. Still, they manage to put down Dracula, because the Prince of Darkness is even more demented. Its just a case of who self-destructs first. If, after more than 400 years of existence, Dracula cannot deal with people of such abysmally low mental faculties, he should start hunting rabbits and pigeons for survival.

The movie begins with how Van Helsing disposed Dracula in the last movie, and finally, brought peace to Transylvania. Until, of course, our four British tourists arrive for a vacation. While in a local tavern, the tourists come across a priest (Andrew Keir), who tells them not to visit Carlsbad by all means, and if they still choose to go, they should at least stay away from the castle, which by horror-film logic tells you that they would soon be cooling off their heels in the God forsaken place. The only progress in the thirty odd years has been that while the victims in modern day films (invariably teenagers) end up in the devil's lair usually because of a sabotage, our fellows literally walk into Dracula's abode.

After that, it is only natural that one of them would be used to bring back Dracula from death, which is done quite dramatically for a film of the 1960s. In fact, the director (Terence Fisher) is very much in control of his matter till this point. Its only when Dracula wakes up that the movie goes astray. The Count does not achieve much in his ephemeral life, except creating a few fanatic, albeit mindless minions. Never for a moment you feel that the Prince of Darkness, now awakened, would unleash his dominion of terror. But that's not his fault actually. Deducing from the fact that Christopher Lee chose to play his role as Dracula silent because of the poor dialogues, the director probably never really intended this to be a Dracula-focused movie. The only saving grace is Barbara Shelley, who beautifully plays the transformation from a fearful, upright British lady to a nasty vampire.

That said, in Hammer films, Dracula never has much hope. He can be scared to death by anything that remotely resembles a cross, has to compulsorily sleep in hallowed ground and stay away from sunlight, and he cannot even swim in running water. To counter that, he does not even have superhuman strength, a sine qua non for supernatural beings in movies. All he possesses is basic hypnotic skills and slightly overgrown fangs. Nothing compared to the demons you see in contemporary cinema like Wes Craven's or Coppola's Dracula (remember the scene in the latter where Dracula puts a cross on fire and flies away contemptuously?). Hence, I would rate the "horror factor" somewhere near 3/10, which means a fifth grader can watch them alone during night, with all lights switched off.

The question arises, why did I see it. Well, simply for the quaint English dialouges. I should also mention here that Hammer films did give an everlasting legacy to Bollywood horror movies - Horse carriage chases! Not tongas, mind you, but proper British stagecoaches galloping across rural India. Watch Veerana and Purana Mandir if you don't believe me.