It's Hammer Time!

Elite Entertainment (the laser disc gods who brought us the uncut, widescreen Tombs of the Blind Dead) and Anchor Bay Home Video have once again teamed up to placate the thousands of drooling horror fans out there. They are releasing a whopping ton of classic Hammer Films releases in their complete, remastered forms - with their correct aspect ratios! Their first handful of titles included The Reptile, Plague of the Zombies, Rasputin: The Mad Monk, and the subject of our review, Dracula, Prince of Darkness.

Hammer Films, for those of you not in the know, was world famous for their horror films - re-visitings of the old Universal monsters i.e. Dracula, Frankenstein, and the Mummy - in the 60s and 70s. The last great English film company, Hammer cleaned house at the drive-ins until overkill drove them to bankruptcy (as is the case with any franchise - remember how many Nightmare on Elm Street films there were? Didn't think so). Ah, but in their prime, Hammer films could be depended on for atmospheric chills and abundant Victorian-Era-by-way-of-the-Summer-of-Love cleavage.

Dracula, Prince of Darkness (1965) is the second of Hammer's Dracula series with Christopher Lee as the only Count that counts (Dracula: A.D. 1972 - a psychedelic, Dracula-meets-the- hippies flick - was the final stake in the heart for this series).

A quartet of unflappable English folks decide to go for a carriage ride in the Romanian countryside. Their driver, a spooked native, decides to ditch his passengers when the dreaded castle Dracula comes into view. Soon our protagonists are picked up by a mysterious black buggy that whisks them away to the castle. One dies in order to revivify the Count, one becomes his love slave, one becomes his erotic fixation, and one vows to destroy him - which he does with the help of a local clergyman and a few well- placed bullets. I know, bullets can't kill a vampire. But shooting out the frozen surface of the moat that the Count stands on is good enough. One of the lesser-known ways to kill a Vampire is by drowning (supposedly it's gotta be running water although I swear in Prince of Darkness it's just a measly moat), so there you go: guns kill the vampire.

First off, I must admit that Dracula, Prince of Darkness is gorgeous. Presented in Technicolor and Techniscope for the first time since its theatrical run, it also has great sets, costumes, and lush photography. And Christopher Lee is a damn good- looking Dracula. BUT . . . Dracula doesn't even get revived until halfway through the film and most of the time he just stands there like a cardboard cut-out with red eyes. The only time he utters a sound is when he shrieks like a little girl as he falls into the icy water. I'm totally against the modern-day Gary Oldman / Frank Langella sappy, lovey-dovey, Lord Byron-with- anemia vampire. But Dracula still needs a bit of personality! For being the Prince of Darkness, Dracula is kind of a wussy in this film.

Folks are always complaining about modern-day film victims in horror films - screaming, hysterical characters that do the exact opposite of what they should do. Apparently in the good old days, characters calmly do the exact opposite of what they should do:

"What's this, old chap?"

"Appears to be a dead body drained of its blood."

"Well, then. Let's get some rest, shall we?"

I'm somewhat disappointed with Hammer's Dracula, Prince of Darkness. Not with the packaging and presentation - which are superb - but because it just isn't suspenseful, scary, or thrilling in any way, shape, or form. My parents have fond memories of seeing the Hammer films at the drive-in back before I was born. And I have fond memories of being scared by their re-tellings of these films. Unfortunately, my fervid child's imagination was able to conjure up more chills than the films themselves . . . Ah, well. Just a personal take on the whole thing. All of you Hammer fans out there will be extremely pleased with these re-releases.

- Punky McScrubb