Captain Audio:
"Found it "Dracula 1972 AD".
I figure the script writer was influenced by the lines from "Hound of the Baskervilles", " Murder, refined cold blooded deliberate murder"."
The 2 modern-day films get dismissed by so many people, but they've long been 2 of my favorites in the entire series. For one thing, they both have interesting stories (which is not somehting you can say about PRINCE OF DARKNESS, RISEN FROM THE GRAVE, or SCARS OF...
For another, both have Peter Cushing, who raises the level of anything he's in. (One might ask, HOW can you do a "Dracula" movie without Van Helsing?) And he's TERRIFIC in these things, especially the scenes where he's explaining things to other people.
Don Houghton wrote both films, shortly after doing work on Jon Pertwee's run of DOCTOR WHO. I still get a kick out of the NERVE to do a remake of TASTE THE BLOOD OF... only 2 years later, only with a much better story. But there are a few really stupid things in it. When Dracula gives Johnny "the power", he loses his daytime protector (though we never do find out where he was sleeping in the daytime). Second, Johnny never DOES have a servant to protect him, and the way he dies in his own apartment kinda makes him look like the stupidest vampire in movie history.
Finally (and note I saw this multiple times before this really started to bother me), the last act makes very little sense, as when Van Helsing tells Inspector Murray to stay away from St. Bartholf's, and that he "won't find anything there", and, to hold off until after nightfall. Seems to me this is the exact OPPOSITE of how one should search for a vampire-- you do it in the DAYTIME when he's asleep, otherwise, he's up, about and dangerous. Van Helsinbg then goes straight to the church in the daytime and finds his granddaughter in a trance, then lays traps for the later confrontation.
I do love it when, after all those years, Dracuka & Van Helsing FINALLY have a "verbal" confrontation, which they never did in the '58 film (or the novel). "You would challenge me-- I who have commanded armies??" Lee was on the top of his game in this one, even though he has so little screen time.
I do wish they'd had the same actress play Jessica in both films... I mean, Stephanie Beachum & Joanna Lumley don't look anything at all like each other!
I actually saw the sequel first-- it was released to theatres here 5 YEARS after it was made, as Hammer apparently lost their distribution in 1973. Tragic. (If somebody put up the money for production-- and it was usually the distributor-- WHY the hell didn't they actually release SATANIC RITES over her when it was made??)
