Sorry folks, another late entry today - a long, busy Tuesday followed by the utter intense need to take a nap after I got home. In fact, I almost skipped the whole shebang today when I looked and saw the film for today ... then I reversed myself.
This movie is one of my all-time favorite Hammer films, period. If not my absolute favorite, which is a hard choice to make. Tomorrow, prepare for the classic "White Zombie," but until then play along with our home version!
Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970): Starring Christopher Lee, Geoffrey Keen, Ralph Bates, Isla Blair and Roy Kinnear.
The Skinny: Number five in a series of films about everyone's favorite Count starring Christopher Lee follows a merchant who stumbles across the dying vampire and saves some of his powdered blood. Soon, one of his disciples steps forward accompanied by a group of jaded Englishmen looking for the next thrill. When Lord Courtly conducts a ritual to return the Count to life, however, they get more than they bargained for.
What's Good: Some of the genre fans dislike this movie because there is very little for Lee to do - he doesn't even appear until almost the middle of the film, and even then he doesn't have much to say or do. But the idea of four well-to-do English businessmen looking for that next thrill and winding up in a Satanic Mass to revive Dracula is a great premise. Plus there are great scenes of the gents as they party it up deep in the bowels of a bizarre brothel where all pleasures of the flesh can be found ... for the right price. Yes! Sign me up!
What's Bad: By that same token, we want to see Lee do his thing, but instead he stands around kind of overseeing the action and ticking off the deaths as the gents fall to his plan of vengeance. In fact, the original premise was for Bates to actually become Dracula as opposed to simply reviving him, but they changed it back to Lee for whatever reason. And again, if you cannot appreciate the reused sets, actors and low-budget charm of the Hammer House of Horror, then by all means look away.
Why We Love It: Why? Because I want to go to some brothel and drink champagne with laudanum in it and watch a chick dance with a python amid hookahs and embroidered silk pillows. That, sir and madam, is why I love it.
Memorable Stuff: You mean other than the chick with the snake (hey, this is the second movie in a row to feature a sexy snake dance, what the hell?)? Well then it's Dracula's resurrection scene, where Lord Courtly adds blood to Drac's powdered blood and it oozed out of the cups of the gentlemen as he urges them to "Drink! Drink, damn you! DRINK!"
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