In his third appearance as the immortal Count, Sir Christopher Lee brings new meaning to the expression ‘bloody students’
For many
years this was ‘the lost Hammer Dracula’ for me. I’d managed to catch up with all the others
thanks to the good old Sunday Horrors, but it’s only because of the treasure
trove which is Aro Street
video that I finally saw this one. I was
very aware of the story, however, due to a pictorial synopsis in a Famous
Monsters magazine special, which I picked up during a family holiday one
year. Richly illustrated with those
famous publicity pics of Christopher Lee apparently helping Veronica Carlson
out of her night gown, it looked great.
On seeing Dracula has Risen from the Grave, what
strikes me is that the previous sequel featured decidedly middle-aged ‘heroes’,
but here we see the first
infiltration of youth culture into the series.
Keinenburg is a student town, and much like campus-neighbouring
establishments today, its tavern is filled with noise, beer fumes and bizarre
drinking rituals. The town is also
something of an ecclesiastical centre and both venerable institutions are about
to suffer the red-eyed wrath of a recently risen revenant.
Dracula has risen from the Grave (1968)
This film
has some wonderfully imaginative and gruesome scenes involving blood letting.
Or, they would be, if the copious gore didn’t look like unstirred roof
paint. Whether this failure to
accurately depict Dracula’s whole reason for existing is a deliberate move due
to some strange censorship requirement, or well-meaning effort by someone who’s
never actually seen the stuff is unclear, but somewhat frustrating.
With that
niggle out of the way, there are scenes so striking peppered throughout this
film that they have become almost compulsory in any book about horror films: the
enraged, coffin-bound Count, grasping at a stake buried in his chest, a young
girl hanging, drained of blood, from a huge church bell; and the mesmerised
Veronica Carlson, barefoot in her night dress as she follows her new master
through the equally dark forest. Such
stuff nightmares are made of.
Lee, even
by this relatively early stage, apparently required a great deal of coercion to
return to the role. His reappearance had apparently been promised to the film’s
distributors before the actor was consulted and perhaps some pent-up fury
informs a performance which is electrifying despite almost no dialogue. A feeling of real dread suffuses the ‘failed
staking’ scene, which also has the gratifying effect of draining the insufferable
smugness from young atheist hero Paul. And
no wonder, it’s bad enough having Lee’s Dracula after you, but when you’ve been
stupid enough to really hiss him off first then it becomes terrifying
Having a
corrupted priest follow at the heels of the Prince of Darkness like a whipped dog
lends a blasphemous edge which surprises even now. This peaks when the enslaved cleric
unceremoniously dumps a mouldering corpse out of her coffin to provide a
temporary home for his Master. And the
fact that the inhabitant is apparently ‘bell girl’ makes her one very
unfortunate individual, even after death.
And as a
nod to my rightly-proud fifth-generation Kiwi friend Peter, I should also mention
New Zealand- born actress and author Barbara Ewing’s wonderful performance as
doomed barmaid Zena. To paraphrase
Steinlager: “They’re drinking our blood, here!”
This film
has been described as “…a minor triumph of style over substance”, and it’s
probably true. The template of book-ending
a story between an imaginative method of revival and destruction of the Count
had been established in the previous film, and Risen really is just a revenge story which takes us from A to B,
and back again. But the powerful imagery
can’t be denied. An early scene of the Monsignor
climbing towards Castle Dracula, at dusk, with a giant crucifix tied to his
back is so iconic that it was used to open every episode of The World
of Hammer, an excellent retrospective TV series which can’t be recommended
enough.
Despite an
unchallenging plot, Dracula has Risen
from the Grave did great business, and the Count’s next return was assured.
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