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The Satanic Rites of Dracula Customer Reviews (1 - 3 of 22 Reviews)

Something about these Rites doesn't seem right
I am rather embarrassed to admit that The Satanic Rites of Dracula is my first Hammer film. This was Christopher Lee's last portrayal of Count Dracula, and although he failed to impress me here I won't attempt to judge his earlier efforts for which I have heard good things. The movie starts rather horribly, I feel, but it gets much better when Dr. Van Helsing becomes involved in the plot. The script is just a little weird. The setting is modern day England (1974), and the once-again less than vanquished Dracula sets out to get his horrible revenge on the world-his plan is to unleash a plague bacillus that makes the Black Death look like a slight case of psoriasis. Basically, this means he wants to kill every human on earth, at which point it will probably be a little difficult for him to sustain himself on human blood-I'm not sure if he ever thought this thing out all the way. He has helpers of course, and this is where the satanic rites come in. Some of England's bluest of blue-bloods have been brought under his spell and are practicing your basic black magic-murdered cockerels, blood sacrifice, naked women being intimately introduced to a sharp knife, cowls and robes, etc. Apparently, Lucifer and Dracula are pretty tight. Anyway, Dracula's rites don't end at sacrifice; the sacrifice comes back as a vampire, but you already knew that. A few men in the government set out to stop whatever is happening, and they bring in Van Helsing to help them. With him comes his siren-haired granddaughter Jessica (Joanna Lumley), who seems bound and determined to lie on a slab at some point (but, alas, fully clothed, which I think should really be against satanic rules). Her discovery of a basement full of vampire women desperate to free her of her blood is perhaps the most engaging scene in the movie. Peter Cushing's portrayal of Van Helsing pretty much saved this picture in my eyes; his performance got off to a slow start, but there's no stopping him once he gets Dracula in his sights. I do have to say that the ending, I felt, was something of a failure, as everything happened much too easily to satisfy me.

It is obvious that this film did not have an unlimited budget; the colors bleed (which sounds appropriate for a vampire film but really isn't) and the music sounds like something from a cheap 70's made-for-TV movie. One vampiress' fangs look incredibly fake, and folks just don't seem to bleed as much as you would expect from stabbings and gunshot wounds. Worst of all, Dracula's henchmen all look like the silent kids in the back of Mr. Kotter's class of Sweathogs and dress alike in Donnie Osmond fur vests. Still, though, despite its faults, it is worth watching. Peter Cushing's performance makes up for a lot of the less successful aspects of the movie. Christopher Lee just never fully succeeds at exerting the power needed to convince me that he is Count Dracula, but I must admit that I suffer from "if it ain't Lugosi, it ain't Dracula" syndrome.

Worst of the Hammer film series
It seems almost a rule of nature that the further a sequel gets from it's source material, the weaker the film turns out to be. Originally called Satanic Rites of Dracula in the US, this film is interesting only for the interplay between Lee and Cushing. The film is dated and campy but in all the wrong ways. I didn't think that a film could get much worse than Dracula A.D. 1972 (save for the opening sequence set in the 1800's with it's imaginative fight between Lee & Cushing), but this film proved me wrong. I thought it was bad even as a 14 year old.

Christopher Lee makes a very good point in his autobiography; if you can substitute the main character with any other character (Fu Manchu, Goldfinger, etc.) and the effect on the script is nil, then it's a pretty weak project to begin with. Lee's Dracula and Cushing's Van Helsing both seem like a bad experiment (sort of like The Thing With Two Heads)gone awry. Clearly this transplant is a failure.

A pity, too, since it would have been nice to see the series concluded with a fang and not a whimper.

Interesting but only okay
Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing have been in a large number of movies together. Unlike many other paired actors, these two rarely play allies or friends: usually, their characters are enemies, with Lee usually, but not always the villain (for example, in the Gorgon, the typical roles are reversed).

With the Satanic Rites of Dracula, Lee and Cushing revisit once again their biggest roles: Lee as Count Dracula and Cushing as a Van Helsing. In this movie, Dracula has widened the scope of his evil by intending to destroy the human race (and ending his own existence in the process), but he also has an urge to personally vanquish his archenemy once and for all.

Lee and Cushing are fine in their roles, but the story itself is often slow and shows more potential than it actually realizes. It is not a bad movie, but it also lacks some of the fun of earlier Hammer horror movies. It shows that this series of Dracula movies have basically played themselves out, and it is good that this concludes the series.

For Dracula fans, especially fans of Lee, considered one of the best in the role, this is worth watching, but as horror in general goes, this is merely passable.

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