Sunday, June 13, 2010

Movie review – “Dracula AD 1972” *1/2

There are some decent ideas in this film but it’s ineptly assembled and executed, with some dreadful music and lack of logic. The basic premise isn’t bad – a lunch of bored kids end up reviving Dracula in 1972 and he tries to get vengeance on Van Helsing’s family. This reunites Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee after a Dracula gap, but neither are on fire – Cushing looks old and tired, the old vigour gone (although this does add to some suspense), with Lee phoning it in. Both are outshone by Christopher Neame as the main bratty kid, a Johnny Lee Miller look-alike. Stephanie Beacham is very pretty and although she doesn’t give the best performance her breasts are in good shape (you see a lot of her cleavage –grandad Cushing seems overly interested in them). Caroline Munro is in it too. The opening and finale aren’t bad but when this goes off the boil, it really goes off – the agonisingly dragged-out opening party sequence, silly running around London, over the top acting from the cast.

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