Taste the Blood of Dracula

Friday, January 18, 2008

These Hammer Studios Dracula movies are all turning out to be pretty good. I figured I'd watch the 4 in the set and never really think of them again, but I actually wouldn't be opposed to seeing more.

Also, I think these are sort of counting towards my 2008 Kommitment to Klassiks. Sort of. I mean, I know these aren't regarded as all-time greats. But they are older films, and in a sub-genre that I am unfamiliar with. Expanding my horizons is really the point of my K2K, and I think I'm doing that with these.

OK, look, I watched Seven Samurai today. So I am doing my K2K for real. But I watch other movies too. Fucking sue me.

This one starts out with some fat guy traveling by horse-drawn carriage. There is, for some reason, a crazy retard in the carriage with him, and the retard for some reason flips out and chucks the guy out of the carriage.

So already, you know, it's got my attention.

Then the fat guy stumbles around in the woods until he happens across Dracula's castle, where he runs smack dab into the conclusion of Dracula Has Risen From the Grave. That's pretty cool. I mean, it ain't exactly like at the end of Saw IV when you realize all the events have been happening concurrent with the events of III, but it's still nifty. Anyway, he for some reason steals some of Dracula's blood and then we don't really see him again except for one other scene.

The movie is really about these three evil, older rich guys. One night they are out at a bordello, and they decide that they are getting bored with all this sex, they need to find the next level of debauchery. These guys are prime Hostel customers.

OK, so they hire some guy that they've heard is a super pervert to find them some crazy shit to do. He decides that they should buy Dracula's blood and perform some sort of ritual in his honor and... I'm not really sure what part of this the guys are supposed to be getting off on. But they go along with it any way. The super pervert drinks the blood of Dracula, and he starts to get sick or something, and he begs for help, so they old guys beat the shit out of him and leave him for dead (huh?) Then the guy I guess magically turns into Dracula and then Dracula decides to get revenge on the old guys for, um, bringing him back to life.

Right, well, the plot doesn't make a lot of sense. Still, this is an entertaining movie, with good performances and visuals and yadda yadda, the same stuff I liked about the other two I watched. I like all the classy accents, and Christopher Lee really does make an awesome Dracula, which is why they must give him top billing even though he's only in this movie for like 10 minutes. Although he acts like a total bitch during the final confrontation, and if I remember he accidentally gets his own dumb ass killed by breaking open a window and letting sunlight in.

I swear this is better than I make it sound.

Next up is Dracula A.D. 1972, and that's it for this set I bought. Let's see if these Hammer flicks are still entertaining when they aren't about people in period costumes riding carriages and walking into castles.