‘Dracula has Risen from the Grave’ is a moutful of a film title if ever there was one, and ‘awkward’ is pretty much embedded into this films DNA…Now, I didnt watch this in the most optimised of conditions (it took me twice as long as the runtime because my internet was being an arse) but I think, even in the best of conditions, i’d have probably been less than ‘on board’ with this one.

So the plot picks up one year after the events of ‘Dracula: Prince of Darkness’ But we open with a brief flashback showing a young church ward finding a victim of Dracula in the church’s belltower…Which, in and of itself is a bit of a continuity problem, because; if memory serves Dracula spends about 99% of that movie in the castle grounds or the surrounding woodlands, he went nowhere near a village in that film; letalone attacked enough people to earn a concerned and infamous status for attacking villagers…bearing in mind that Prince of Darkness itself is set 10 years after ‘Horror of Dracula’ and in THAT movie, they emphisize that the village are aware of Dracula, but they have a ‘We dont bother him, he rarely bothers us’ relationship.

In either case, the attack renders the Church ward mute and puts a curse on the church resulting in noone showing up for mass (Oh I do love a good Mass!) When the Bishop for the area turns up and calls the priest out for the totally empty service. The priest makes it clear, noones going to attend a mass there until there is certainty that Draculas dead. So; the Bishop agrees to travel up to Draculas castle and perform a healing exorcism on the grounds to entrap any bad spirits to the grounds of the castle permanently.

However; with this being a Dracula movie, things dont quite go to plan, the Bishop gets seperated from the priest, he performs the service and heads back down the mountain trail, thinking the priest has gone ahead of him, the priest meanwhile bangs his head, and the open wound seeps into a nearby thawed out river and conveniently into the mouth of a semi frozen Dracula. who consumes the blood and is reborn, taking the priest on as a kind of ‘Renfield’ figure.

This then leads us into our main plot which follows Paul, a pastry chef in love with local sweetheart Maria. Pauls an Atheist. And what he DOESNT know is that Marias uncle…is the Bishop. So…that goes well, and to complicate matters further, on seeing Maria. Dracula decides he wants her for one of his ‘Brides’ of the undead…Leading a pastry chef and a Bishop to take on the prince of Darkness to try and free the Priest from the grasps of evil, and end the things once and for all…again.

Its a pretty short and sweet one for me on this one. Its WAY better than ‘Prince of Darkness’ in my opinion, but not *quite* as fun as ‘Brides of Dracula’.

The scripts fine enough, I like that they go back to the lore than victims of Dracula are essentially still themselves, but hunger for blood similarly to Drug addicts. I liked some of the action sequences and the tone of the piece which felt much more grounded after the last films all over the place attempt to ‘find itself’ I thought the act structurings were pretty solid.

But, much like ‘Prince of Darkness’ this thing is SO SLOW at times. its 90 minutes that feels like 120. and while it is peppered throughout with some very interesting and fun moments, the gaps between them where people are largely just sat around or stood dumping village lore or Dracula facts is at times interminable. This isnt slowburn, its pedestrian burn.

The characters are all pretty basic architypes for this genre once again. Though, somewhat mercifully, at least Dracula gets a BIT more complexity than he did in the last entry…Not much by any stretch…But at least he HAS lines and delivers them with something of a menace. Everyone else though? Its weird. It feels almost like a movie made up entirely of background cast members, with noone really being given anything that well and truley makes them stand out.

The dialogue feels overly long winded to the point of it becoming labourious. Its very much in the realms of telling over showing, and while their is a little bit more titlation and gore here than in the last 2 entries, its all EXCEEDINGLY tame by late 60s standards.

The cine and direction ARE however a marked improvement over the last film, we see a return to the rich and lavish setwork of the first couple of entries, and while I dont feel the direction really truely captures the full majesty of those set designs (and…while they are quite a bit closer to the original films aesthetic, they are still a little cheaper looking than the original) It does at least attempt to get close to that with mixed results ultimately.

The cine at least tries in places to strike away from the first two films, rather than desperately trying to redo iconic moments over and over again, theres a certain degree of German expressionism to this film that I really quite liked, and the colour work is quite delightful here honestly. It feels like after the last film, they were keen to not repeat the mistakes they made on this front, and really wanted to try and capture that premium quality that early Hammer was known for, im not going to say its an out and out success. But its better than I expected.

Performance wise, Christopher Lee ACTUALLY has some dialogue in this film (not a lot, but he does!) and he delivers it pretty decently. I think the big problem Lee has here is that the effects budget seems to have been the thing to take the hit when producing this film, meaning his costume is a little cheap and shabby looking, they try to really ‘red up’ Draculas eyes with mixed to poor results, and the director seemingly just, doesnt quite understand how to try and impose menace onto a man of Lee’s stature. Meaning more often than not, while he should be coming across as an imposing and oppressive force. Instead he just looks like a slightly weedy guy in a halloween costume trying to LOOK menacing while having all the ACTUAL menace of a care bear.

The main cast all struggle with the fact that they feel less like main players and more like extras who’ve been given a small promotion. meaning a lot of the time I just didnt really care or feel invested in them because they didnt present themselves as worth investing in. With Ewan Hooper and Rupert Davies as the Priest and the Bishop being the only pairing who really stood out to me across the whole runtime…But otherwise? its a bit of a busted flush.

And as for the soundtrack? its the same kind of Hammer score we’ve heard time and time before, is it good? yeh kinda…is it distinct? it’s Hammer baby…does it make this film standout? ASBOLUTELY NOT.

I cant really flaw the technical elements of this film, its shot fine enough, but the script and casting really let down a film that needed a very specific kind of energy bringing to it. Is it a bad movie? No. I wouldnt go that far. But it feels incredibly padded in places and the plot is somehow slower than crawling speed.

While I would absolutely say this is a step in the right direction after ‘Prince of Darkness’ its really more of a ‘pivot’ movie than one that sees a return to the kind of Hammer I know and love. This thing is absolutely ‘Watchable’ but I dont know if i’d actively choose to watch it again.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/dracula-has-risen-from-the-grave/