Dracula: Prince of Darkness

The film opens by replaying the final scene of “Horror of Dracula” (1958), a clear indication that Hammer intended to establish a direct link to the first film of the series, as if this – and not “The Brides of Dracula” (1960) – should be considered the real sequel, or at least the natural continuation of the 1958 film.

Basically, the project revolves around Christopher Lee’s perhaps unwilling return, reprising his role as the prince of darkness. And it hardly matters if the fiend’s appearance is a long time coming (you have to wait 45 minutes to see him), since the entire story is saturated to the core with his vile essence. Paradoxically, this sort of “present absence” – which we know is destined to lead to the vampire’s inevitable resurrection – allows Fisher, who’s at the top of his game, to progressively orchestrate suspense with astonishing efficacy, finally culminating in such an exasperating crescendo that it evokes suffocating nightmares for both the viewer as well as poor Helen, who laments: “This whole situation is like a… like a bad dream. I expect any moment to wake up and find it didn’t happen“.

A work that’s simultaneously cultured and terrifying, with prudent literary allusions (reserved for moments rich in pathos: the vampire longing to corrupt the woman, inviting her to suck blood from his chest, his nefarious influence on Ludwig/Renfield’s fragile mind, the frantic dusk chase) well balanced by a pair of unprecedented scenes of a practically untenable cruelty for the period – indeed, the dynamic of the vampirized woman’s execution is reminiscent of a sort of gang rape, while the director himself defined the ritual performed on Alan’s body as “an Antichrist ceremony”! And then we have a Dracula who’s more feral than any we’ve ever seen before, an incarnation of Evil in its purest form, unable to even speak, hissing and snarling like a savage emanation unleashed from hell.

Underrated by traditional film critics who were relatively unaccustomed to genre cinema, “Dracula: Prince of Darkness” was well received by the movie-going public.