The Satanic Rites of Dracula

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CodyZamboni Z Set in the 1970s. Van Helsing and The Count are back in this direct sequel to Dracula 72AD, This time Hammer takes advantage of the relaxed censorship rules. So there's more extreme violence, more nudity. But few scares. And Hammer openly rips off James Bond by featuring a Spectre like organization. All this adds up to a watchable mess, Capped by a clever, but too abrupt finale. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/18/25 Full Review DanTheMan 2 In a similar vein to Dracula A.D. 1972, The Satanic Rites of Dracula tries to shake up the formula in a new way, this time combining elements of a counter-espionage spy thriller with old-school occultism complete with blood orgies and virgin sacrifices, but sadly misses the mark to the point where this feels like one film too many. Hammer's penultimate Dracula film, the final to feature Lee in the titular role as well as the penultimate film he would share with Cushing, the film is brisk, silly and ultimately an original direction for this strained series. Going into this film with an open mind certainly helped as I still ended up liking this one quite a bit. Once again, Alan Gibson's direction is very professional and full of energy, with some really nice English countryside photography courtesy of Brian Probyn, while John Cacavas's music is rather wonderful. The Satanic Rites of Dracula while ultimately feeling like a last gasp of relevancy, remains tremendous fun and interweaves a modern story, dealing with different kinds of brutality with their classic formula of gore, castles and the supernatural. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 10/27/23 Full Review William R. P Maybe double heaping Satan and Dracula is not a good idea Rated 1.5/5 Stars •  Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars 10/03/23 Full Review dave s When watching a film from Hammer, the very least that you can usually expect are half decent production values. That's not the case with The Satanic Rites of Dracula, which looks like some sort of low-budget nightmare. By far the weakest of Hammer's Dracula series, the movie is set in modern-day London and involves such things as devil worship, human sacrifice, a strain of bubonic plague, plenty of vampires (of course) and some intimidating bikers in strange vests. The plot is patently absurd and can be boiled down to a confrontation between Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) and Dracula (Christopher Lee). Cushing and Lee are always great, but everything else in the movie is either ridiculous, confusing, or unintentionally funny, including the final battle between Dracula and a thorny bush. Rated 1/5 Stars •  Rated 1 out of 5 stars 03/30/23 Full Review Audience Member Man, what a title. Better than the original one, Dracula is Dead…and Well and Living in London, which upset Christoper Lee so much that he was outspoken at the press conference that introduced the movie: "I'm doing it under protest… I think it is fatuous. I can think of twenty adjectives — fatuous, pointless, absurd. It's not a comedy, but it's got a comic title. I don't see the point." The eighth Hammer Dracula movie, the seventh and final to star Lee (John Forbes-Robertson played Dracula with David de Keyser as the voice in The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires) and the third and last to put Lee's vampire against Cushing's Van Helsing (they would appear in only one more movie together, House of the Long Shadows), this is pretty much the end of an era. Every time I think of this movie, I remember Bill Van Ryn of Drive-In Asylum excitingly saying to me — after we saw the trailer at a drive-in — "It's not enough that Dracula is a vampire. Now he has an entire army of Satanists and he wants to rule the world and he has a plague!" It turns out that there's a govenment occult conspiracy that only Van Helsing can stop and he's bringing along his granddaughter Patsy Stone, err, Jessica Van Helsing. As the cabal prepares for the Sabbath of the Undead, their mysterious fifth member is revealed to be, of course, Dracula using the identity of reclusive property developer D. D. Denham and operating out of the very same churchyard where he died in Dracula A.D. 1972. Somehow, this is more of a Eurospy science fiction movie than the traditional horror film, but that's kind of the beauty of the whole thing. Somehow, this fell into the public domain in the U.S. That's why it's on so many Mill Creek sets under this title and the edited TV version Count Dracula and his Vampire Bride. Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 02/06/23 Full Review Audience Member Christopher Lee was a great Dracula but unfortunately this is definitely one of the worst films he was in. Terrible plot, silly ending and overall just bad direction. Rated 2/5 Stars •  Rated 2 out of 5 stars 02/12/23 Full Review Read all reviews

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