[HorrorScience] Dracula, Prince of Darkness (1966)

Reading time: 6 minutes

Qualification

Dracula Prince of Darkness

Year

1966

Duration

90 minutes

Director

Terence Fisher

Distribution

Christopher Lee, Barbara Shelley, Andrew Keir, Francis Matthews, Suzan Farmer, Charles Tingwell, Thorley Walters, Philip Latham, Peter Cushing, Philip Ray, George Woodbridge, Jack Lambert, John Maxim and Walter Brown

Script

Anthony Hinds

Count Dracula is one of the characters who has visited this section on several occasions, since not only has it been commented Dracula (1931) by Bela Lugosi (and his spanish version with Carlos Villarias as a vampire) but they have also gone through the section Dracula's daughter (1936) and Son of Dracula (1943), as well as the crossovers where the vampire appeared (Frankenstein's mansion (1944) and Dracula's mansion (1945) either Van Helsing (2004) ).

The Dracula of the 1930s is generally considered to be the most iconic, imitated and influential. But it cannot be denied that the one played by Christopher Lee is just as important, which is why I have also commented Horror of Dracula (1958), where the actor first donned the vampire cape, and its sequel, Dracula's Brides (1960) which did not feature the appearance of the actor (or Dracula himself) but did feature Van Helsing, the hero who killed him.

On this occasion I am going to continue with the Dracula saga created by Hammer Productions with its third part (or second, if we ignore Dracula's Brides). The time has come to comment Dracula, Prince of darkness.

After seeing the destruction of Count Dracula at the hands of Van Helsing (with scenes taken directly from Horror of Dracula) the film takes a time jump of a decade, in which (and despite the Count having been destroyed) people are still afraid of vampires.

[HorrorScience] Dracula, Prince of Darkness (1966) — The fear that the townspeople have makes them take "security measures" with the recent corpses

Father Sandor, a priest with a strong and direct character, tries to open the eyes of the fearful villagers he meets during his trip without much luck, as they continue performing rituals on the fresh corpses to prevent them from becoming vampires, refusing to believe that Dracula or his subjects have disappeared.

Despite being sure of Dracula's destruction, Sandor is not reluctant to believe that the evil that resides in vampires could return at some point, which is why he recommends to some tourists who are traveling in the area, that do not go to a specific castle, one that does not appear on the maps.

Although they are tempted to go, the tourists end up deciding to listen to the priest, although a couple of unexpected situations will cause them to end up entering that forbidden castle, where they will be well received by Klove, a butler who continues to act as such, even though the lord of the castle died years ago.

Obviously, Klove is not just a butler and Father Sandor will have to take matters into his own hands to prevent Dracula from resurrecting and once again extending his reign of terror across Europe.

Dracula, Prince of Darkness It is a pleasant continuation of what was seen in Horror of Dracula and although Peter Cushing is missed playing Van Helsing, he tries to make up for that loss with new, quite acceptable characters, the best of all being Father Sandor, who could be defined as a priest with a shotgun and little desire to put up with nonsense.

The story is very simple and although it advances slowly, once the tragedies begin, they do not stop. It is nice to see that they recover a concept not used in the first Dracula film of this series, such as the human servant of Dracula, who in this case is as sinister as the vampire and I find it so interesting that I even consider it to be somewhat wasted.

It is true that Drácula aparece poco en la película y que la manera de la cual se libran de él es bastante absurda, pero lo cierto es que creo que en líneas generales la película está muy bien y mantiene una atmósfera siniestra bastante constante durante todo el metraje gracias a pequeños detalles como que se escuche el viento de fondo cuando los personajes hablan en sus habitaciones.

Se nota que Terence Fisher tenía aprecio al personaje y cuidó tanto esta película de la misma manera que lo hizo con las dos anteriores, formando una trilogía muy sólida y recomendable. De hecho creo que esta película, junto con Horror of Dracula son las mejores de todas las que hizo Hammer Productions de este personaje. Adoro el Drácula de esta película, aparece muy pocos minutos y no dice una palabra, pero es terrorífico y salvaje.

Curiosities about the film:

Drácula no habla en toda la película, hay varias versiones sobre el porqué de esa situación. En una de las versiones se dice que a Christopher Lee no le gustó el dialogo y convenció al director de que sería mejor que Drácula no hablase en la película. En otras versiones, se dice que Drácula nunca tuvo dialogo para mostrarlo más agresivo.
Esta es la primera película donde aparece Drácula con la típica capa negra por fuera y roja por dentro que pasó a formar parte de la imagen popular del personaje.
Esta película se rodó al mismo tiempo que Rasputin, el monje loco (1966) y debido a ello se compartieron los escenarios y algunos de los actores aparecieron en ambas películas.