by Jack Seabrook
I have a long ago memory of being taken by my father to a grindhouse in Downtown Newark to see a double feature of It! with Roddy McDowall and Dracula Has Risen from the Grave. It must have been 1969 or 1970, which means I was six or seven years old, and I vaguely recall a few scenes from both movies. I also recall being so frightened that I had nightmares for a month.
It! recently showed up on TV one evening and I was able to catch bits and pieces of it. It was more silly than scary, so when the Hammer-Amicus Blogathon IV came along, it seemed like a good opportunity to revisit the other film from that double bill of over 50 years ago to see how it holds up. Fortunately, my local library had a Blu-ray of the Dracula film, so watching it again after all this time was easy.
The opening credits certainly set things up well, with blood dripping down the screen and a loud, orchestral score setting the mood. A dead woman is discovered hanging upside down inside a bell in a church tower in the opening scene; of course, she has two puncture wounds in her neck and there's a trail of blood, so you-know-who has been at it again.
A year later, a Catholic priest, depressed because no one comes to mass anymore (shades of 2023!), receives a visit from a monsignor, who questions the local pubgoers as to why they've stopped showing up. Learning that it's due to their fear of nearby Castle Dracula, the plucky monsignor grabs a large, metal cross and drags the parish priest along with him on a journey up a rocky mountain to the castle. The priest bails halfway up and, while the monsignor is attaching the cross to the castle's front door, the dopey priest manages to fall, tumble down among some rocks, and sustain a cut on his head. Dracula happens to be frozen in ice right nearby, having ended up there at the end of his last flick (Dracula: Price of Darkness) and, not surprisingly, blood from the priest's head trickles through a crack in the ice and reaches the vampire's lips. Voila! In the blink of a bloodshot eye, he's up and out of the ice, all warmed up and pointing at the priest with a hypnotic stare. Uh oh.
Zena the busty barmaid ends up being chased through the woods one night by the priest, who drives a horse and carriage; she ends up panting and heaving her bosom in front of Dracula, who quickly puts the bite on her. Unfortunately for Zena, the vampire prefers blondes to brunettes and orders her to bring Maria to him. The gorgeous Maria barely avoids being bitten in the basement, and Zena is quickly disposed of by the priest at Dracula's request, tossed unceremoniously into a fireplace in the basement bakery.
That night, Dracula pays a visit to Maria and her dolly in her room, where he bites her neck. He's back the next night for more, but this time the monsignor pops into her room, holding a cross, and it's out the window for Dracula. The monsignor gives chase but receives a fatal head wound from the priest. On his death bed sofa, the monsignor charges young Paul with protecting Maria but, since Paul is an atheist, that presents a challenge. Paul must have one of the hardest noggins in England? Germany? Transylvania?, because he recovers quickly after being bashed in the noodle with a candlestick by the priest.
Paul orders the priest to take him to Dracula, which isn't hard, since the vampire is resting in his coffin in the basement of the pub/bakery. Paul plunges a stake into the vampire's chest but, because he won't pray (he's an atheist, remember), Dracula hops up, pulls the stake out of his own chest, and throws it at Paul! This is the scene I remember from over 50 years ago--it was frightening and baffling, since Dracula usually vaporizes the moment a stake enters his thorax.
Dracula escapes to the rooftops, where Maria approaches him. Things turn baffling from here on in, as Dracula drives pell-mell through the forest in his horse and carriage, with Maria at his side, while Paul rides equally hard on a horse, looking for him. Paul rushes into the pub (a different pub?) that had been seen at the start of the film, asking if there's a castle anywhere nearby where a vampire might hang out. I had thought the pub was atop Paul's bakery and that he lived upstairs, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
Anyway, Dracula makes it to his castle and has Maria remove the cross from the door and toss it over a parapet; it falls to the rocks below and lands right side up, which is key. Paul appears and struggles with Dracula, causing both to fall over the parapet. Paul is fine, but Dracula is impaled on the cross! The priest shows up and must no longer be hypnotized, since he starts praying, which finishes off the vampire. Paul and Maria live happily ever after, with Paul crossing himself at the end, and Dracula disintegrates, though the budget must not have allowed for a shot of the process, since we see Dracula impaled, there is a cut away, and then we see just his cape and the cross, implying that he has turned to dust and scattered in the breeze.
Dracula Has Risen from the Grave benefits from the usual Hammer colors and supporting players, but the script is a bit weak. Christopher Lee does the staring thing that he does so well, and the action scenes are fine, though the ending is a bit rushed and rather confusing, seeming like the writer didn't know how to get all of the characters into place for the conclusion he had in mind. Still, Veronica Carlson is stunning as Maria, there are some good, bloody shots, and the 92-minute running time passes quickly. It's far from the best of the Hammer Draculas, but it's worth a look. And it's not nearly as scary as it was when I was seven years old!
