THE BRIDES OF DRACULA - Malcolm Williamson - "Is That Teeth?" (1960)

If this isn't one of the best lookin' title cards you've ever seen, I'll bite your neck!!!

It was a cold and windy night when it all began!! Yes, it's yet another classic Hammer vampire tale, this time, it's the story of "The Brides of Dracula!"

It's quite a simple story really, and it all begins when the totally lovely Yvonne Monlaur as Marianne Danielle first appears on the scene!

One of the first people Yvonne meets is Martita Hunt as the Baroness Meinster, or as everyone else knows her, Dracula's mother!!!

Yvonne goes off to spend the night with the lonely baroness, and, of coure she doesn't listen when told not to release the baroness's nice guy son, because he's not really a nice guy!!

Yvonne is pretty dumb, and is quite surprised when she sees that the baroness has been killed by her own son, the nice guy she just released!! Maybe you should have listened to the Mama!! Duh!!!

Unlike last night, now here's a guy that really does look like a vampire!!! David Peel was mostly a TV actor, and this was one of his rare film appearances, and only horror role, except in "The Hands Of Orlac" he played an airplane pilot!!

The rather somber and stoic soundtrack is provided by Master of the Queen's music, Malcolm Williamson, in his only 60's horror outing!!

The brides start coming to life, so enter stage right, the man of many hours, Peter Cushing, this time as Dr. J. Van Helsing again!

Here we have Andree Melly as Gina, before and after she meets Dracula! Gina's appearance as the bride scarred many a young boy's psyche in the 60's, who found it confusing, to be attracted to the devil with her hair down, instead of the innocent angel!!

Time for the big showdown between Dracula and Van Helsing!

You would have thought with Peter Cushing's experience, and the fact that David Peel was such a novice, that he would have put up a better fight!! Pretty easy to see what an amazing actor Peter Cushing really was as he delivers this incredible eye-popping performance!!

Any self-respecting vampire just wouldn't stand a chance to ever feel comfortable in a land with giant burning crosses like this scattered across the countryside. You'd of thought all the vampires would have moved out of the region by now!!

You can find "The Brides Of Dracula" on a double feature DVD with "Curse Of The Werewolf!" Now, that's a bargain you can sink your fangs into!!

THE SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA - John Cacavas - "Count Dracula And His Vampire Bride" (1973)

 I did a search of our blog to see how many vampire movies we have done, and the list went something like this: VAMPIRE, THE VAMPIRE, THE VAMPIRE LOVERS, BLOOD OF THE VAMPIRE, ROBO VAMPIRE, THE SLAUGHTER OF THE VAMPIRES, THE VAMPIRE'S COFFIN, COUNT YORGA, VAMPIRE,  CRYPT OF THE VAMPIRE, THE VAMPIRE'S GHOST, FRANKENSTEIN, THE VAMPIRE AND CO, VAMPIRE CIRCUS, I VAMPIRI, THE VAMPIRE BAT, BLOODLUST: THE VAMPIRE OF NUREMBERG, THE KISS OF THE VAMPIRE, FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS, THE VAMPIRE IS ALIVE, BLOOD BATH (TRACK OF THE VAMPIRE), GRAVE OF THE VAMPIRE, THE NUDE VAMPIRE, MARK OF THE VAMPIRE, MY SON THE VAMPIRE, THE VAMPIRE GIRLS, THE VAMPIRE AND THE BALLERINA, BRING ME THE VAMPIRE, ATOM AGE VAMPIRE, THE VAMPIRE HAPPENING, and now tonight, COUNT DRACULA AND HIS VAMPIRE BRIDE! And that doesn't even include all the Dracula movies, just the ones with vampire in the title!

I wish I was equally impressed with this movie, but then that's a different story! "Count Dracula And His Vampire Bride," is probably not the best Hammer vampire movie ever made, but then again, it's not a big enough turkey to be thrown into a 50 Pack with "Black Hooker," "Night Train To Terror," and  "Prisoner Of The Lost Universe" either!

Originally released as "The Satanic Rites Of Dracula," a title that is a much more accurate description of what's happening in this film, "Count Dracula And His Vampire Bride" is kind of an interesting movie on a couple of different levels, and even though it has some tediously long and totally unnecessary bullshit, I didn't fall asleep while watching it, and that says a lot these days!

There's some Satanic rites, and a human sacrifice taking place, and the members of the sect are some very powerful, and influential characters! Investigating people like this who are above the law, takes a lot of dedication, determination, and fortitude!

If anybody can get to the bottom of this, it's going to be Peter Cushing as Van Helsing, a role Peter has had more than a couple of times!

Freddie (Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed) Jones, who had the disposable role of Professor Keeley is still working today......

..........As is Joanna (Corpse Bride) Lumley as Van Helsing's Granddaughter Jessica!

Dracula has five or six brides stashed in the basement, which leads me to the conclusion that he must be a mamón Mormon!

Valerie (The Insomniac) Van Ost is Jane, Drac's latest girlfriend!

Cool portrait of Dracula, and a good place to say that the orchestrated but hip music in "Count Dracula And His Vampire Bride" was composed by John (Horror Express) Cacavas in his third outing! Among a host of other things, John also composed the theme song and all the music for the TV series "Kojak!" He also had a penchant for composing songs with moon in the title like "Moonstruck," "Touch O' The Moon," and "The Other Side Of The Moon!" Like what's going to happen to all of us eventually, John just passed away last year!

Peter Cushing is always entertaining, even when the movie is not that great, he usually still is!

William (Quatermass II) Franklyn has an equally disposable role as Torrence! He seems like one of the main characters until he gets ambushed, and then he's just gone!

They spent a few minutes on a scene of Van Helsing melting down a silver crucifix and making it into a silver bullet, then when he gets a chance to use it, it's lamely knocked out of his hand and fogotten! Some time spent in a bar, a club, or a pub somewhere would have been some time better spent!

I dig this shot of Drac's chilly modern office complex!

Now that's a finger you definitely do not want to pull!!!

This is the first Dracula movie that I know of where Dracula actually wants to use his otherworldly powers for world domination instead of slinking around in dark alleys and cemeteries!

Michael (Dracula A.D. 1972) Coles as Murray has got some problems of his own with some of Drac's girls!

There are moments of brilliance like this when I would give this film a 5 star rating, and then there are times when I wouldn't even give it one and a half stars! It's all over the place!

Mixing up the game and adding new elements, that's what "Dracula And His Vampire Bride" is all about! Before he was hanged, Professor Keeley was working on a project for Drac where he slathered some Bubonic Plague samples he had with radioactive rays to produce a new and stronger plague that eats right through your skin in a matter of minutes! It's science working overtime for a better future like in "The Flesh Eaters"!

Dracula's disciples are a bunch of dudes with long hair, motorbikes, and fuzzy/furry lumberjack hippie vests! They blindly serve their master for whatever reason I don't know, not style for sure!

By my reckoning, this would be the 10th time Sir Christopher Lee would don the cape and teeth for the role of Dracula!

PETER CUSHING!

I've always known about the mirrors and the cameras, the daylight, the silver bullets, the garlic, the holy water, the crosses, and the stakes through the heart, but I have to admit I was ignorant about the effect that the hawthorne bush had on Dracula! The hawthorne was what the crown of thorns was made of that was placed on Jesus' head when he was crucified, so that makes sense!

Irregardless, it really fucked with Dracula in this closing scene!!!

DRACULA: PRINCE OF DARKNESS - James Bernard - "Drac Is Back" (1966)

In 1958, the first Hammer Dracula flick was released as "Horror Of Dracula," but was originally titled merely "Dracula!" It would be eight years until this sequel, "Dracula:Prince Of Darkness" would see the light of day in 1966! Hammer did release two more vampire movies in between these two, "Brides Of Dracula," and "Kiss Of The Vampire," but neither film had Christopher Lee in them! Christopher Lee was in one other non-Hammer vampire movie during this period as Count Ludwig Karnstein in "Crypt Of The Vampire!" Hammer beast of burden James Bernard once again gets credit for the score!!

Jeez, the last time we saw our hero, he looked like he was out for the count for sure, but......

Just take about 13 steps into the future and the modern day digs of Count Dracula! If you decide to visit, don't ask any questions, or you might just take a shot to the chops!! For some odd and unexplained reason, the locals don't dig this place!

Drac's pad is still kept up quite nicely by Philip Latham as Klove, as a kind of tourist attraction! Out of 83 credits, mostly on UK TV, this is without a doubt, the most ghastly role in Phil's repertoire!

Whenever I see a shot like this I always want to give a big shout out to whoever the Cinematographer is, and in this case it's a fellow named Michael Reed!

The Kent family were the lucky winners in this all-expense paid vacation, but it's no time at all before Charles Tingwell as Alan Kent is called upon to make an extra payment!! It's kind of a draining situation, but he's head over heels about it! Among his multiple credits, Charles 'Bud' Tingwell did all kinds of puppet voices in the "Thurderbirds" and "Captain Scarlet And The Mysterons" TV shows that included the voices of Bruno, Dr. Lang, The International Space Control, Captain Brown, Dr. Fawn, and Agent 042!

That snarky olde Klove has been holding onto his master's dust for a long time, and once Alan Kent's blood is added to the mixture, it's no time at all before Dracula is reconstituted and back in action again!

She's regularly referred to as the first leading lady of British horror for her roles in such films as "Village Of The Damned," and "Quatermass And The Pit, and here Barbara Shelley is rudely brought down by Klove to see her husband and is immediately met up with by Dracula, who does a number on her neck, and she quickly becomes another walking dead minion of the night ready to prey on the others!

I don't know what the big deal about Christopher Lee is, he only has 275 acting credits to his name, and in this film, he doesn't utter not even one single word, which is probably just as well, since the version I watched was in Italian with no sub-titles! Grazie Tedmo, Grazie!!

It's like one big vampire family reunion, and the invitations state very clearly B.Y.O.B! Bring yer own blood!!!

Dammit! Don't make eye contact!!

Suzan (DIE, MONSTER, DIE) Farmer as Diana Kent leads the gang in a rousing edition of "100 Pints Of Blood On The Wall!" Suzan was such a good screamer, they used her voice for both hers and Barbara Shelley's screams!!

Thorley (THE PSYCHOPATH, FRANKENSTEIN CREATED WOMAN, TWISTED NERVE) Walters has what I believe to be a completely disposable role as Ludwig, a fly eating Renfield type character!

"Dracula: Prince Of Darkness" is not a film to be taken lightly by any means!

Where they really lost me, was in the ending! If you have ever seen any vampire or werewolf movies at all, you know there are some very strict rules, and one of them is you don't come out during the daylight hours, and since when does ice water have such a devastating effect on a vampire? That was a new one on me!

Here's one last look at the survivors, Francis (CORRIDORS OF BLOOD, THE REVENGE OF FRANKENSTEIN) Matthews as Charles Kent, Suzan Farmer as Diana Kent, and Andrew (DALEK'S' Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D.) Keir as Father Sandor, the benevolent Priest! Here's a pretty amazing statistic for you, as far as I can discern, out of all the people I've mentioned here, Christopher Lee, Barbara Shelley, Francis Matthews, Suzan Farmer and Philip Latham are still alive! That's a pretty high percentage for a film this old!

So, if Dracula is the Prince of Darkness, then who are the King and Queen! I could see Satan as the King, but who is the Queen, Mrs. Claus?? You know we like to kid around sometimes, well, here's something I just found out that's not a joke! If you're looking to see this film, there is some guy in Georgia who has a sealed DVD of "Dracula: Prince Of Darkness" that he's trying to sell on Amazon for $8,102.69 plus $2.98 shipping! I think he should have at least offered free shipping!!! Good night sweet Prince!!