Christopher Lee wasn’t keen to reprise the role that made him an international film star (he eventually gave in for Dracula – Prince of Darkness) so Hammer came up with a Dracula sequel without Dracula. Which makes sense since he did die in the previous film – and they could get Peter Cushing back as Van Hesling. Cushing is terrific once more, seemingly smart as a whip, agile and very physical, forever leaping around the place. I say “seemingly smart” because if truth be told Van Helsing isn’t a terribly successful vampire hunter for most of this movie; he spends a lot of the running time just sort of moving in and out of rooms fast, warning people that something bad is coming, without doing much good. The only vampire he kills is one who offers herself up to him.
This is a beautiful looking film – stunning art direction, lovely costumes, etc – and has that great early period Hammer feel. It’s also very disjointed though; the first third concerns the adventure of a lovely, if quite stupid student teacher (Yvonne Monlaur) stuck in vampire land who accepts an invitation by an old lady (Martita Hunt, looking like a man in drag – I’m sorry if that sounds mean but it’s true) to spend a night at her castle. In doing so she finds Hunt’s spunky son (David Peel) locked up – so she lets him out not knowing he’s a vampire. Then down the track she leaves the castle, the son runs amok, Van Helsing turns up, Monlaur doesn’t realise what’s going on until Peel’s killed a bunch of people and shown fangs.
Monlaur’s character has to be really dumb for the plot to work; it’s a shame since she’s a major point of difference to women in Hammer films – most of them are in sexual thrall to vampires, but she’s in romantic thrall as well, she wants to marry him. Peel’s motivation was a bit murky as well – did he just want to marry Monlaur or have other things in mind? Three different writers worked on the script and you can tell.
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