…Well, that was a rather overblown waste of my time…

The teaser for this film promises ‘Dracula; rising from the grave after 10 years!’ but thats misleading, because what they mean by that is that this film takes place 10 years AFTER ‘Horror of Dracula’ and ignores ‘Brides of Dracula’ completely. ‘Horror of Dracula’ came out in 1958, so im assuming they used that slug because finding EXACT release date information wasnt that easy in the mid 1960s and they were only 2 years off being 10 years old…So…they winged it.

Im going to keep it brief, the plot follows a bunch of obnoxious gits who I took an immediate disliking to who are travelling to castle Dracula, on the way they encounter a man of the cloth who warns them about Draculas history and advises them not to travel to the castle. but they ignore him and head up there anyway. and what follows is around 45 minutes of these gits SLOWLY making their way up to the castle, arriving, titting about on the castle grounds for an AGE, before FINALLY meeting the custodian of the castle, who performs the slowest soup serving scene in cinema history, more titting about the castle, and we get our first kill AND first glimpse at Dracula AT the 45 minute mark, around halfway into this film.

From there, Dracula attacks the first victims wife, turning her into a vampire and the other couple who were travelling with them escape the castle, flee into the woods, find the man of the cloth again, relay whats happened to him and he teams up with the pair to try and take Dracula down once and for all SPOILERS – They succeed by making him fall into some running icy water…Waste of my time.

The scripts slow, plodding, and most critically DULL. its interesting moments are cherry picked, repackaged moments from ‘Horror’ and ‘Brides’ of Dracula, with everything else feeling like cold uninteresting filler or like it was especially crafted to annoy me. the pacing is glacial, the tone inconsistent and unappealing. the act structuring is all pretty much melted into each other meaning it feels like one long unbroken conversation rather than an ACTUAL plot.

Dracula himself is barely in ANY of this movie, collectively I think he gets maybe 5-8 minutes screentime, HIS best moments are visuals from ‘Horror of Dracula’ repackaged in a cheaper and less interesting way.

Almost all of the characters are unlikable, Dracula himself gets a HUGE downgrade in terms of character in this one, given NO dialogue and reduced to pretty much bursting into a scene, hissing, smashing some stuff up and running out…if I wanted to see that I’d go into my living room and throw something at my cat.

Most critically, a LOT of the lore from the last two films has been airlocked. the first 2 movies went to great length to imply that vampirism was a bit like drug addiction in the sense that becoming a vampire doesnt fundamentally change who you are, your still you, your just driven by urges and compulsions to do things you dont want to do because getting a bite of that sweet sweet blood feels SO so good…Here? Nah! thats all gone! if you get bitten, your just evil now. They also decided to make Vampires totally indestructable from now on apart from a very specific list of things including (but not limited to) Sunlight, a crucifix, running water, holy water and a stake through the heart…thats it.

The direction is low effort, basic attempts to just get the shot, leaning heavily on styles and choices from earlier entries. I cannot get my head around just how CHEAP everything here looks, NON of it has that grand richness of the earlier Hammer offerings, everything looks like it was shot in a broom closet somewhere near pinewood. This feels like ‘store brand’ Dracula. and it doesnt even pretend to be otherwise.

Same goes for the cine, drab, lifeless shots, maybe a handful of interesting moments, but its all largely cribbed. I cant fault the technicality, its still more or less to standard. But I cant believe just how much of a downgrade this is compared to the last film (itself a step down from the film before it) its astonishing really that this film made it through multiple pitch meetings without SOMEONE speaking up to say that its dreary to the point of being a prescription strength insomnia cure.

Performances are poor too, Im not entirley sure if this is at the point where Christopher Lee didnt want to be associated with Dracula anymore or not…But here he gives as much as he can muster to give for a part that clearly is beneath him at this point. Thats probably the kindest thing I can say.

I refuse to give anymore time to this film in looking up the other cast members names, they were all dreary. boring energyless performances that sapped what little energy I had. Its ‘Exposition: The Movie’ just people standing around in rooms talking, and once every 20 minutes or so screaming. its dull.

Soundtrack not bad, but nothing new, fit film fine. edited in well. kind of dull.

I didnt like this one. They had a good 5-6 years to pull together the return of a british horror icon, and it could NOT feel any more ‘thrown together based on notes written on the back of a cigarette packet 10 minutes before cameras roll’ if it tried. I have seen SOV films have better production values and story than this. Dire. Dire is the only thoughts I have for it honestly, not a fan, dont wanna watch it again. dont watch it, really poor show.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/dracula-prince-of-darkness/