Movie review – “Taste the Blood of Dracula” (1970) **

Hammer did try with their sequels to make some attempt at acknowledging what happened in the previous film. Here Roy Kinnear stumbles up on the climax of Dracula Has Risen from the Grave, with Chris Lee impaled on a cross on crying tears of blood. Kinnear collects his dry blood then stumbles upon a film written to not include Dracula, about a bunch of kinky middle aged men in a small town who get up to no good after hours despite their respectable veneer. As part of their adventures they get hooked up with a dashing Satanist (Ralph Bates, effective) who is a little like Karnstein before he turned vampire in Twins of Evil.

They get some of Dracula’s blood from Kinnear and end up in a ceremony which brings Dracula back from the dead although the Satanist dies. Now instead of being glad for being back from the dead, Dracula declares revenge against the middle aged men for killing his servant Bates. Huh? (It’s as confusing as Dracula getting revenge against the priest in the previous film – lazy writing to motivate the rest of the action for the second half of the film).

There are some surprisingly sweet romantic scenes and Geoffrey Keene gives the support cast some class (the film lacks a bit of momentum when he dies leaving his two mates played by actors who aren’t as good). The film was originally about Bates turning into a vampire before James Carreras persuaded Lee to reprise his role.

It’s a shame Bates disappears from the film – Bates plus Lee would have given the film a bit more kick. I did enjoy the scene where the two girl vampires drive a stake through a person’s heart who has come to kill them (these girls aren’t the best actors in the world but their enthusiasm is sweet to see). One of them, dopey Alice (Linda Hayden), whose fate provides the stakes (if you’ll excuse the pun) for the last section of the film, is given the chance to leave Dracula but refuses – but then Dracula refuses to take Alice with him so she sooks off.

Dracula’s method of death in this one is to be trapped in a church, surrounded by crosses, and be freaked out by Alice’s wet boyfriend reciting the Lord’s prayer. He then decomposes. There are some interesting ideas on display here (black magic, religion, secret lives of middle aged men, Satanists) and decent handling but it doesn’t really take fire.