Grand Moff Tarkin vs. By Christina Harlin, your Fearless Young Orphan Horror of Dracula (1958) Directed by Terence Fisher

You’re probably thinking, “Finally! After all these vampire movies, she’s finally getting around to the Hammer films!” So here it is, in all its Peter Cushing vs. glory: Horror of Dracula! We’ll just take Bram Stoker’s tale and have ourselves a gnarly little tea party with it. This is not the oldest vampire movie we’ve discussed (Nosferatu appeared on the Foreign Classics page and of course we did Boris Karloff’s Dracula on the Unseen Classics page) but it is the oldest one to receive a Fangs rating. I’ll try to get some more of these done soon.

But to the matter at hand: It’s Hammer Time. Okay, fine. Now I’ve said it. You know I had to say it at some point, so we’ll just get it out of the way and now I promise, I won’t say it again unless it’s really, really funny to do so. Okay. So it’s Hammer Time. HAHAHAHAHAHA there I said it again.

Be serious! Okay, but it’s hard to be serious with these extremely serious older British films because they’re so very funny. In a good way, I mean. We have not only Cushing as Van Helsing and Lee as Dracula, both actors whose names have become simply synonymous with terrific villainy, but also well-known British faces John Van Eyssen as Jonathan Harker and Michael Gough as Arthur (brother to Mina). The movie is essentially about these men.

Yes, there are women too, and plenty of them, but they don’t seem to matter very much. They are possessions to be protected, prizes to be won, and this is not a love story between Dracula and his long-lost sweetheart. I’d go so far as to say it seems like a homoerotic version of the Dracula tale – the men are so devoted to the destruction of one another – but that’s not correct either. This is not a love story at all. This was made before vampires got too sexy. Oh sure, vampires were always a wee bit sexy. Why not? Dracula is a snappy dresser. This is actually not about sex at all (not that I could see, and I pretty much see sex everywhere, with my mind in the gutter and all) but about Good and Evil. Dracula is a creature of evil and must be stopped by those who object to his damnation of souls of the innocent. Peter Cushing’s Dr. Van Helsing is a warrior of the light, and damn stern about it, too. He rarely cracks a smile.

Now to my modern eyes, this makes the story a little less interesting. What’s the fun of all this without temptation? Even those who fall under Dracula’s spell (Mina, for a little while) are clearly just knocked stupid by vampire-telepathy. And here you’ve got Christopher Lee as Dracula, slim and tall in his impeccable evening clothes and one really badass cape, you’d think that there would be some sparks flying, but no. He’s all business. He doesn’t even seem like a vampire who is subject to lust of the bloody kind; he’s more like a corporate executive who is protecting his interests with some unorthodox methods. These Brits are so restrained and dignified that they can’t even threaten each other’s lives without sounding eminently polite about it.

Well, listen to me, going on and on, without having said much about the plot at all. That is because the plot is Bram Stoker’s, sort of, all over again, and as with every interpretation of the tale, it’s not the plot but the delivery that is going to make the difference. With this old-school delivery, we modern kids must make some adjustments in our thinking.

I should at least mention the plot, though, which severely edits Stoker’s story. There’s no Renfield, there’s no estate in London, there’s no ocean voyage or anything. Jonathan Harker goes to Dracula’s castle for a job as a librarian but with the ulterior motive of destroying the vampire, so Harker apparently already knows all about the castle mischief and is already in contact with Van Helsing. Harker tries and fails to end Dracula’s low-key terror and gets his own dumb ass killed, then the story switches over to Van Helsing and his investigation of Jonathan’s death at the behest of Arthur, Mina’s brother. Mina is already halfway down the road to being a vampire when this happens. Lucy, Arthur’s wife, is going to get it next. Dracula has an eye for the ladies but it doesn’t seem as if he likes one any more than another. Van Helsing and Arthur fight to free Mina’s soul from damnation and rescue Lucy before she can evolve into a third-level vampire. The whole ordeal is rather stiff and has the occasional feel of laziness to it. For example, Dracula has set up camp in Arthur and Lucy’s basement, which is not a large room. He’s got a big white coffin just sitting out in the middle of the room, and it takes Van Helsing a troubling amount of time to figure this out. What is this, Cape Fear? Christopher Lee is in theory an elegant Dracula but he doesn’t move like a vampire. He runs like a man and opens doors like a man and looks surprised like a man; he’s just a strange man with pointy teeth, far as I can see. His dark powers are little addressed: maybe a bit of mind-control, maybe the ability to come and go in the mists of a dry-ice machine, that’s about it.

Still, I suppose we have to be thankful for good performances. Truth be told, I doubt Brits could turn in bad performances if they tried. They are theatrical from the bones out. The sets are good-looking, the story expedient and clear, the music is amusingly dramatic. I liked the paladin flavor to Van Helsing, and it was interesting seeing the whole adventure from a non-romantic perspective. I believe that’s a first, because even Werner Herzog’s bizarre Nosferatu the Vampire had a sad, lonely romanticism to it.

What is missing is any sense of fear or concern for the characters, and I’d wager this is due to the age of the film. This particular Dracula doesn’t manage to chill the bones. And to those of us who have already seen half a dozen or more versions of Stoker’s tale, this one seems to add nothing new to the mix except for the interesting actors. Of Screw you, Cushing! I’m Saruman the White!” course, I’d be glad to hang with both of them, Dracula and Van Helsing, and watch them throw down about who subsequently played the more interesting villain. 7/10 Fangs