Blu-ray review - Bram Stoker’s Dracula
(No, not that one)
The second of my unearthed blu-ray reviews from dim and distant 2015…
Blu-ray review: Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1974)
There’s a whole sub genre of the British horror film which includes stuff that wasn’t shot specifically for cinemas, but somehow ended up being shown in them. Whether that was down to a lack of available content for the local fleapits, the makers wanting to wring as much cash out of their efforts as possible in a pre-VHS era, or that the final product actually exceeded expectations and deserved a wider (cinematic) audience despite its TV movie roots, I haven’t got the faintest idea. Although it’s unlikely the correct answer is the “exceeded expectations” one.
These TV-movie-to-cinema transitions included Baffled!, The Secret Of Seagull Island, and Spectre – strange, transatlantic offerings that mix American and British talent, and were generally filmed in this country for a US transmission. Bram Stoker’s Dracula has a similar pedigree, but to be fair to the makers is a breed apart.
For a start, the casual viewer wouldn’t know it was a TV movie – this is no videotaped, yellow writing-titled bit of nonsense that has the look of an episode of The Rockford Files. It’s a proper expensive-looking film, meaning that a Blu-ray release, on this occasion, actually makes sense. The casual viewer wouldn’t even know it had such roots – every scene looks gorgeous, and there are some nice touches (the way the red of Mina’s bedroom clashes with the white exterior of the house when seen from the garden, almost like a… vivid puncture wound in a pale neck?) which wouldn’t look out of place in a European art-house offering. The full-on Blu-ray treatment only helps get this across.
So, ticks there, certainly… this little known film did deserve a clean-up and a bit of the five star treatment, from an “it looks gorgeous” point of view. But what of the actual content? Is it just a beautifully polished turd? Well, before I go any further, I should warn you… it does star Jack Palance in the title role (as Dracula, not Bram Stoker – der).
Now, you may know Mr Palance for what he was best known – as a craggy faced Hollywood character actor in war films and westerns. But he also cropped up in a few British horror films, for some reason – notably Torture Garden (as Edgar Allan Poe, no less) and Craze (as, erm… Peter Cushing, who was obviously on holiday that week, otherwise they’d definitely have used him instead). So he has form. But can he pull off a Dracula? The answer is, perhaps surprisingly, yes, he can. Or could.
This is no suave, sophisticated Christopher Lee – when riled, Palance’s Count is a snarling, whispering fiend. At one point he cuts through an entire hotel of moustachioed goons, chucking them down stairs and through windows with superhuman strength. You’d not credit it before watching, but he’s a surprisingly good choice.
As you can probably tell from the title, this is no gung-ho Hammer film, instead a “love story across the ages”, much like its 90s namesake. So despite looking gorgeous, having occasional bouts of OTT violence, and boasting a spot-on Dracula in the form of Palance, it can get a bit dull at times. But it’s worth sticking with, as there’s much entertainment to be had from some lovely set-ups (the aftermath of the Demeter’s arrival at Whitby) and, as with most Brit horrors of the time, some unintentional comedy. Here’s some of my favourites, for you to tick off as you watch the disc (which of course you’re going to buy after reading this wonderful review):
“Now I go to England. And you… HYAGH!!” (Dracula throws Harker gently across the room)
Van Helsing’s terrible bedside manner: “Have you heard of… Nosferatu?”
Scarborough Zoo (full marks for carrying on the North Yorkshire vibe there, film makers, although you did ruin it slightly by giving the zookeeper a COMEDY COCKNEY ACCENT). Dracula gets discovered by the aforementioned zookeeper: “’Ere… wot are you up to there?” To which, the answer really should have been: “Isn’t it obvious? I am clearly placing a German Shepherd dog in a cage marked ‘wolves’.”
But I digress. This is a sadly overlooked British horror film from the golden age, it’s well made and shot and deserves such a shiny release. It’s not going to give you any new insights into the much-overdone Dracula myth, but it’s a worthy purchase for any fans of Gothic horror.
It’s currently available from Odeon Entertainment, find out more here: http://www.odeonent.co.uk/.../british.../genre-horror,1970s
