The mediocrity continues, and once again I find myself in a position where Im faced with a Hammer Dracula movie that ONCE AGAIN is a drawn out and overly slow plot with a handful of interesting or fun nuggets wedged firmly into its core. This time up? It’s ‘Scars of Dracula’ the second Dracula movie for Hammer in 1970, and another attempt of mish mashing ideas from the older films and other films Hammers produced into a semi incoherent vampire flick.

This time? we get essentially 2 movies in one! And even Hammer couldnt be bothered to check their own continuity as this film opens shortly after the events of ‘Taste the Blood of Dracula’ and for some reason Draculas ghostly ashes have been moved from an abandoned Church in London to a room of Draculas European castle…It could maybe be said that his returning Henchman ‘Klove’ played by the ever wonderful Patrick Troughton maybe stole his remains and lay them in situe at the castle…But it isnt really explained.

Plot 1 runs the first half of the movie or so as we’re introduced to ‘Paul’ (im not sure if this is supposed to be the same Paul from the last film, just recast…or another guy named Paul…but either way…)PAUL! Is a bit of a ‘Jack the lad’ sleeping around with various women and acting the chancer. We’re introduced to him in the bedroom of a young lady, who happens to be the daughter of the towns Bergermeister. When Paul reveals he’s been lying to this woman about attending nightschool (when in fact he’s been using it as an excuse to go and hang out with his friends and sleep around) the woman goes to her father and accuses him of raping her. At which point ther Bergermeister summons his guards to arrest Paul.

Lucky for Paul, he manages to make it to his friends birthday party and give them a present, before the guards burst in and try to arrest him. But Paul makes a quick escape out of a window and winds up riding a driverless horse drawn carriage into the woods and up to Draculas Castle.

Oh! I forgot to mention, how is Dracula ressurected in this film? well…a comedically awful prop vampire bat drips some blood on his ashes and ressurects him. Dont ask questions. ANYWAY.

Paul arrives at the castle, Klove lets him in and Dracula offers to put the chap up for the night. Little does Paul know that Draculas handmaid is in fact ALSO a vampire, and when she gets flirty with Paul, its his neck thats on the line! Paul plans a daring escape, but we dont get to see what happens to him, as we crash straight into plot 2! which is where Pauls friends start to worry that he hasnt been seen since the night he jumped out the window, so they decide to go and try to find him.

At a local inn, the keeper and his patrons are quiet, but the innkeepers maid spills the beans in private, telling the pair that they saw Pauls carriage head up to the castle. And so…thats plot 2, Pauls friends going to Draculas castle to try and find Paul, winding up ALSO on the counts menu and Klove and the residents of the castle also trying to kill the couple before the dreaded truth about whats going on is revealed.

In short. as a movie? its fine. Honestly, if it wasnt for the fact that Christopher Lee actually gets some half decent dialogue in this, AND the fact they FINALLY seem to have remembered how to shoot him to look intimidating AND the fact that Patrick Troughton is pretty great as ‘Klove’ in this (Take THAT Jon Pertwee!) this film would actually be pretty dire.

The scripts slow, plodding, basically recycling tropes from other Hammer films and stitching them together into a movie that isnt anything we havent seen before. My biggest issue with the scripting is the same problem I had when I reviewed ‘Taste the Blood of Dracula’ which is that…its 1970. over the next 24-36 months Horror will undergo a transformation that starts with the exploitation genre and ends with ‘The Exorcist’ and ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ and what is this film doing during this great cinematic revolution? rehashing scripts from the late 1950s with very little modernisation.

the pacing is slow, not slowburn…slow. the characters (barring Drac and Klove) are uninteresting, monotonal and this is a film that LOVES to tell over showing, the effects are LITERALLY being recycled from films 6-7 years years ago…and they looked awful THEN. theres no challenge here, no shake up of the genre, no trying new things. its the Baby puree food of ‘Dracula’ movies. Good for someone who may not know WHAT a vampire even is…but not so good if you’ve ever in your life seen ANY vampire movie.

The direction and cine are kind of flat and dull, while this is FAR from ‘Prince of Darkness’ cheap, I do feel we’ve backslid somewhat from ‘Taste the blood’ with a lot more location work and bigger, but emptier set spaces…What really doesnt help this film is the directors pachent for shooting everything wide. It means that, YES. you DO get to look at the majesty of these sprawling set spaces, but it also pulls all the tension, horror and action out of the movie and exposes the lack of finer detail to a heavy detriment.

The cine is fine enough, but again, its creaking. It’s 1970 and this feels like an early 60s storyboarding job, shots are composed fine enough, but its just not built for modern audiences of the time, it’s frustrating, because Im starting to get the feeling like its the company holding back progress, rather than uninspiring directors…or maybe its a bit of both…But in either case, it doesnt feel like a movie of this time period. It almost feels like a throwback, and I can guarenTEE you that audiences of this time were NOT going to watch this for genuine scares. By this point, audiences probably went to laugh at films like this.

The performances once again, are fine, but not great. Troughton and Lee are the best this film has, and they do ‘good’ but not ‘great’, the rest of the cast are animate physically. But ultimately just kind of dull…Because all the script has them doing is running through exposition, it means that they never ACTUALLY get to say or do anything other than recapping what we’ve already seen, or what we already know from previous movies.

And im losing the will to live with the scoring. this is the third film in this series in a row to be scored by the same composer, and honestly? Im starting to think he recorded one score back in 1960 and just sent pitched up/pitched down varients of the same recording for the last 3 movies. its SO dull, it works for what they’re trying to do. but by this point? Im numb to this kind of orchestral work. it might as well be white noise for me.

It feels to me like Hammer made ‘Scars of Dracula’ to hedge their bets in case ‘Taste the Blood of Dracula’ was recieved poorly. I could honestly imagine higher ups at this company being like ‘Well…we dont want to dissapoint people if we offer up a fresh take on the franchise…best to fund a second film thats basically just going through the motions to be safe’

Thing is? I dont even dislike these movies, they’re fine enough. But thats really the frustration with this franchise. Every. Single. One of them is just ‘Fine Enough’, a handful of fun or interesting moments stapled to Grey slop. and its such a shame because, with just a little bit more care, attention and adaptability to the times…these films could have all been great. As it stands. if it wasnt for the fact that im currently going through all the Hammer ‘Dracula’ movies. I’d have probably stopped 2 movies ago…

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