Dracula Blu-ray Review

• 14th Mar 2013

When Hammer released their remake of Dracula in 1958 they promised more blood and bright colour than ever before and inevitably received an ‘X’ rating (today its DVD release is a 12). The new release in the series of Hammer films getting the makeover has all of this in the bright Technicolor it deserves in its dual format DVD/Blu-ray on an impressive three disc collection. Hammer had been making films since the mid 1930s, mostly B movies based off radio serials such as Dick Barton. In the mid-fifties they bought the rights to Universal’s series of horror films from the thirties. In 1957 Hammer Films released The Curse of Frankenstein (also recently released in the same glorious Technicolor), a period remake of the 1931 classic starring Boris Karloff as the monster. One year later Christopher Lee who naturally was unrecognizable in make-up returned as a monster of a different kind one year later in another remake of a Universal film, Dracula; this time Lee was the elegant dark, handsome and gruesome prince of darkness.

This is not just a straight remake of the Universal film, but a re-evaluation of the story in a compact 82 minutes. The posters at the time of the film’s release glorified the amount of blood in the film and the more sensational reviews also made this point. The blood is at its more apparent in the scenes involving the stakings which are very bloody indeed; not least of all when Dracula’s bride (Valerie Gaunt) is staked and ages before our eyes. It received its premiere in the US where it was titled ‘Horror of Dracula’ so as not to confuse it with the original. However, author Bram Stoker’s estate forbid much of the books use and this cost Hammer $40,000 to buy the rights directly from Universal. Jimmy Sangster’s script also stripped out all the supernatural elements and the geography due to its budgetary constraints. Much has, therefore, been changed starting with Lee’s caped Dracula dismissing the exotic Eastern European accent and instead as a tall, dark and gruesome gentleman of the evil Stewart Granger type and becomes something of a sexual predator. The film opens with Jonathan Harker arriving at Dracula’s castle where he is engaged as a librarian (and not the estate agent as set out in Stoker’s novel); Dracula’s castle is instead presented more of an aristocrat’s home instead of the dusty cobwebbed uninhabitable castle of the Universal film. Whitby has also been dismissed and is instead set in the fictitious central European town of Karlstadt (with local Buckinghamshire surroundings of Boreham Wood standing in for Transylvania) as have a number of peripheral characters including the madman Renfield been expunged; most of the names stay intact, however. Nor does Dracula shapeshift into a bat or a wolf and Cushing’s Van Helsing is explicit in making this clear. Not least of all the return of Peter Cushing, having starred with Lee in The Curse of Frankenstein as the Baron makes a welcome entry and would go on to play Professor Van Helsing in three other Hammer films. In these films Cushing is elegant and has command in every scene he appears in. Although he appears only more than a third of the way through the film he does have most of the dialogue, whereas Lee only has thirteen lines and speaks only to Jonathan Harker. As many of the commentators state in the extras Cushing and Lee have complete command of any of the films or scenes that they are in and here, as in most of their films, good or bad, they are indeed very classy actors who carry their roles with dignity (even in the bad films). Also this film has some of the big names of Hammer behind the scenes: Michael Carreras, Anthony Hinds and Anthony Nelson Keys (producer), the wonderful Terence Fisher (director), Jimmy Sangster (script), Jack Asher (cinematography), Bernard Robinson (art and production design) and James Bernard (music), making for a perfect storm for one of the truly great Hammer films. Indeed Bernard’s music is omnipresent throughout the film, the documentaries and the DVD’s title page with its edge of the seat strains; Kim Newman makes the point that Bernard’s score stands in for the little Dracula actually appears in the film.

Made at a cost of £81,413 (with Lee only receiving £750 for his role), it is estimated that since its release it has made over $25 million and almost immediately was recognized as a classic.The filmwas directed by the man who would become a regular Hammer horror director, Terence Fisher and struggled with his limited budget to make the film and as a critical success it marked the way for the gorier horror films that followed and has continued since. Viewing today it is hard to believe that these films are he forefathers of such films as The Evil Dead, Mario Bava and Herschell Gordon Lewis, but the gentlemanly presentation is still irresistible to any horror film and I for one get a warm fuzzy feeling watching these old Lee/Cushing Hammer films.

Significantly the version on this disc has extra scenes not seen since the film’s release – and even then that was in Japan. In the original Japanese edit the film included more erotic Dracula/victim seduction scenes and best of all the more visceral turning of Dracula into dust following the final dual between the Count and Van Helsing. In the Japanese edit Dracula scrapes away at his own rotting face and it is now a real treat that this scene has now been fully restored. One of the extras on this THREE disc set is ‘Dracula Reconstructed’ goes into the passion by those who discovered and first saw these new scenes (also on the disc are the poor and unreconstructed scratchy Japanese scenes as they were originally seen). As with all the other restored Hammer releases there are interviews with the usual Hammer/gothic horror experts: Mark Gatiss, Jonathan Rigby and Kim Newman who speak passionately about this film, nearly always cited as the best of all of Hammer’s films. Also included is a half hour commentary documentary by Christopher Frayling setting the film into context in which he talks about how before 1958 no one ever spoke about ‘Dracula’ from a Freudian perspective and for the first time sex was important to the story and the characters (which ties in with the BBFC’s comments that writer Jimmy Sangster’s script is disgusting and perverted). In addition there is the usual Hammer documentary narrated by Oliver Reed, this time on Hammer’s vampire films; also included is an extensive stills gallery and CD-ROM of the shooting script with liner notes.

This release is the height of the Hammer reconstructions and is worthy of any Hammer/classic horror fan and worth the money for this three disc special; it comes in both the 2007 BFI reconstruction as well as the 2012 Hammer one. Oh, the choice. I can’t praise this version of the film, the extras and the transfer highly enough and is as the film should be seen. Bring on more of these Hammer discs.

Chris Hick