A new decade, and a new turn for Hammer in one of the more conflicting films i’ve seen from the studio. ‘Taste the Blood of Dracula’ is a bit of a contradiction in film making, an entry in Hammers Dracula series that simultaineously is trying to break with the previous few Hammer Dracula movies and is trying to modernize the style and feel of Hammer on a technical level. While ALSO feeling positively antiquated in the way it handles its themes and tones, the amount of gore or titilation it shows and its storytelling capabilities. Bearing in mind, the Amacus folk horror era is right on this films doorstep, and using Hammer as a base, that studio (and studios like it) would reinvent what Hammer started for new audiences and modern times. By contrast, Hammer is starting to feel behind the times.

The film this time around is presented as a bit of an anthology of sorts. featuring three well respected gentlemen of the community, who behind the scenes lust of the seedy and strange underbelly of society. from Brothels, to strange drinks and drugs. These gentlmen crave debauchery. But a chance encounter with a passerby will change their lives forever.

He is well acquainted with a travelling conman who, by chance, stumbled on Draculas demise at the end of the last film, and…Not one to miss an opportunity, snatched up his cape, clasp, ring and a large vial of his blood. and, with backing from the gents. This stranger is going to unleash untold chaos into their lives, by threatening the ressurection of Count Dracula himself.

However; the ressurection ceremony goes arwy when the gents get the fear and decide they dont want to go any further. When the stranger decides to complete the ritual himself, he scares the gents so much they beat him to death…Only for it THEN to be revealed that this stranger was a follower of Dracula, and that when Drac finds out they’ve killed one of his servents. He’s enraged to the point that he’ll stop at nothing to see the three put into the ground…Even if that means enlisting the help of their own children to do so…

And, despite the somewhat creaky nature of the studio at this time, I really do have a bit of a soft spot for this entry.

The script is a little slowburn, but whereas the other entries felt like they were stalling for time, this one feels like its ACTUALLY trying to slowly build tension and keep a consistent pace. Thats not to say there isnt SOME padding here and there. But what we predominantly have here is a film split across two storylines (Draculas vengence on the Gentlemen, and one of the Gentlemens daughters ‘Alice’ having domestic issues with her father over her wanting to court a young suitor) theres a certain emotional element to this film that hasnt really been seen since ‘Brides of Dracula’ and I feel its handled really rather well.

The act structuring is fairly solid, we have decent characters who feel more complex and engaging than previous efforts. We spend a LOT of time with bad people in this movie, they’re the people who take us on the majority of this journey, and its interesting to see Hammer take that approach after over a decade of monotonous characters who were essentially walking stereotypes for the genre.

In fact, my only gripe really with the film (barring some slight padding issues) is that I dont even really know if this needed necessarily to be a Dracula movie. It could have just as easily been about the Gents accidentally murdering someone and unleashing…just a generic curse on them and their families that would lead to their demise, and it probably would have worked even better than trying to cram a Dracula shaped peg into a not quite so Dracula shaped hole. That and the ending is a bit out of left field and abrupt…Im not entirely sure how Dracula dies in this movie. My best guess is thinking about neat and tidy churches gave him an anurism…

Direction and cine are sharp, feel refreshed, and see a return to a lush and rich feeling sense of set design. Again however; there are some tropes that have persisted from 50s Hammer that are STILL being forced into this film from a technical perspective and it just makes the production feel SO weary against its contemporaries. Just basic shot framings and Experimentation work that feels SO dated. Not to mention the aforementioned lack of interesting gore or fight choreography…It feels like a studio being left in the dust at times in a world thats soon to find itself with the likes of ‘The Wicker Man’, ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ and ‘The Exorcist’…

Performances are solid enough, again, I think a lot of the improvements I feel in this film come simply from giving the characters just a bit more complexity and a sense that they exist in a ‘lived in’ world. Anthony Higgins, Peter Sallis and Geoffrey Keen all play wonderfully as the three gents who wind up on Draculas hitlist. they open in a position of power and these three play a blinder in showing the breakdown of their constitution in the sheer face of fear.

Christopher Lee once again turns up as Dracula, he talks in this one too! I think his performance here is really solid, but the final act fight really wasnt very good, to the point that it made me cringe a couple of times to think that this series first film ended with an extensively choreographed fight sequence between Lee and Cushing using lavishly designed set pieces and spaces…And now here’s Lee…standing on a balcony hurling rocks at someone till he falls over…ugh…

The supporting cast are great too, with Roy Kinnear as the Con man, Linda hayden as Alice and Ralph Bates as Lord Courtley all bringing a real presence and ‘feel’ to this film that has been sorely absent from the last couple of entries. They’re delightful.

And the soundtrack? standard hammer, uninspiring, edited in well…yadda yadda. it does the job, but I always hope for more…

‘Taste the Blood of Dracula’ may have one of the worst film titles Hammers ever done (and they named a film ‘The Snorkel’ once…) But despite its titling. its a surprisingly robust movie that I could actually see myself revisiting at some point, while its maybe a little *too* slowburn for some. This is the first film since ‘Brides of Dracula’ that’s actually held my attention throughout and left me feeling like I could see myself rewatching it again in future…So I guess from me? I’d say recommended and probably worth checking out, especially if your exploring ‘classic’ horror or vampire movies in general.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/taste-the-blood-of-dracula/