It's strange, since this certainly is not a great movie but yet I
somehow really enjoyed it.
In essence this is a very basic and formulaic Dracula movie, in which a
bunch of people end up at Dracula's castle, who once again gets
resurrected and goes after female throats again. For some reason
Dracula always seems to prefer female blood, what is up with that? But
anyway, that is basically all there is to this movie. Sounds incredibly
formulaic all but still the movie somehow manages to become a good and
likable one within its genre.
The first thing that of course makes this movie great to watch is its
atmosphere, which is always present throughout basically every old
fashioned Hammer movie. In this particular case the atmosphere is
mostly being very dark, which often adds to the tension of the movie.
And the movie does overall quite a good job with building up its
tension. It's a very slowly told movie, which also gives it a
mysterious kind of vibe to it. As a matter of fact, very little is
happening in the movie its first 30 minutes and Dracula doesn't show up
in it until 45 minutes in, which is the halfway point of this movie.
But it's not like the movie ever feels boring. There constantly is a
sense present throughout the movie that something could happen at any
moment. This works out great for its tension and overall buildup.
It's also sort of funny how Dracula himself is hardly in this movie.
Christopher Lee is literally in a handful of scenes and he doesn't even
have any speaking lines this time. That doesn't mean that he doesn't
shine as the caped count. He's absolutely charismatic and threatening
in his role and the moments with him in it are still the highlight of
the movie.
Great old school horror!
7/10
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