“I'd rather have you as you are than see you parading yourself like some jaded young slut from the whorehouse. At least there is dignity in age.”

I'm going to stick my neck out here and say that Countess Dracula is not the best film Hammer made. I know it has a lot of fans, but there’s something irredeemably silly and uneventful about the whole thing. I like an unwittingly funny production as much as the next man, but Countess Dracula just leaves me cold.

The film starts as it means to go on, with a chap in a silly hat (Sandor Eles) arriving at a funeral. Silly hats abound in this part of the world, everyone has a go with one. We're then treated to the first (but not the last, oh no) crash-zoom onto the merry widow (Ingrid Pitt) and the titles blare out. We then get the usual scene that Hammer used to show someone was a "bad person" - the gay abandon with which her coach and horses return to her castle, running over peasants without a care in the world.

At the will reading it turns out that the Countess’s late husband has had the last laugh - the chap on the horse with the silly hat has been left with the horses and the stables. She gets the rest of the fortune, but must share it with her daughter. No-one is particularly happy with the will, except for said chap. His name is Tote, and as well as his predilection for bad hats, it appears he:

1. Can only communicate through the power of post-production dubbing, an affliction which seems to affect most of the cast at points within the film - more than usual for this age of film, and extremely noticeable;

2. Has been cursed with a wonky moustache;

3. Hasn't had much luck with his hair, either;

4. Got dressed in the dark.

But I digress. the Countess, who up to this point has been coated with not-very-convincing old age make-up, accidentally splashes a virgin's blood on her face and realises that - bingo - she suddenly looks 20 years younger. The next morning her faithful guard and lover Dobie (safe pair of hands Nigel Green), greeted with a far more ravishing prospective coupling than the previous night, wonders what Pitt's daughter is going to say when she arrives tomorrow to find her mother looks younger than her.

Cue daughter's kidnapping (complete with dubbed on voice track of ineffectual "Ah! Let me go"s and "Ooh, you beast"s) and the first of many foiled escape attempts by the feisty youngster.

Pitt has meanwhile fallen head of heels for young Tote. I'm not sure what it would have been that first attracted her, really - the wonky 'tache, the stupid boots, the hideous white spandex trousers or possibly his enormous balloon sleeves. Take your pick.

Dobie is understandably jealous, especially when he shows he's the perfect man by claiming that he prefers Pitt when she's old: “I'd rather have you as you are than see you parading yourself like some jaded young slut from the whorehouse. At least there is dignity in age!” But she reckons she will only appeal to Tote as a younger woman, so the dead, drained virgins keep piling up. One is a fortune teller, who obviously wasn't particularly good at her job as she failed to notice the hair pin destined to come into contact with her jugular. There's also the small issue - once again pointed out be the faithful and forthright Dobie - that every time her temporary, virgins-blood-infused youth wears off, Pitt gets uglier. It also always happens when she's about to get it on with a gentleman, which does make for the occasional comedy moment.

There is, I'm afraid, very little to recommend Countess Dracula to anyone other than a rabid Hammer completist. The horror is kept to a minimum, the nudity is almost coy, and the title is so misleading (considering the company's history) that you wonder how they got away with it without getting sued.