Entertaining, creepy, filmic embellishment using Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” novel as its source material. There is a passage in Dracula which recounts the captain’s log of the sailing ship Demeter and its journey from Transylvania to London. It seems that the ship is transporting a large number of crates in its seaward passage. Count Dracula is moving to London! Unknown to the ship’s crew is that this truly uninvited, evil presence is going along for the ride. Slowly but surely, crew members start disappearing and the quest is on to discover just what in fact is going on.
There are many dread inducing moments in this movie. This movie had a notoriously brief run in theatres but it is kind of dark viewing matter. Probably not a crowd pleaser. Oh, well. I say, go seek it out.
I have always enjoyed Hammer Films’ “Horror Of Dracula” starring Peter Cushing as Dr. Van Helsing, vampire authority, and Christopher Lee as the undead blood sucker, Dracula. I thought the movie was a very well done horror thriller. Lee is menacing and frightening as a very strong but cold parasitic beast bent on his own survival. Cushing is magnificent as the determined and brilliant expert on folklore and the Supernatural bent on ending the vampire’s reign of terror.
With the current pandemic raging on and being newly unemployed, I found time to finally finish Bram Stoker’s novel, “Dracula”. Now, comparing Hammers’ “Horror” with Stoker’s work, I found definite narrative differences. The Hammer film follows its own logic and twist on the story and is satisfying enough in its own right. Stoker’s work is of course The Source Material and being a 300 page novel having to be adapted by a scriptwriter for a 90 to 120 minute movie, many choice and not so choice bits are left out of the screen treatment for “Horror of Dracula”. I think these are two different visions sharing the same title character and some of the supporting players. Both versions are interesting and entertaining and it is worth investing time in reading the novel and getting a look at the original vision of author Stoker.
A varied collection of unusual movie and music video clips.
