I'm in the middle of watching it right now (not a lick of trouble from this DVD) and ... yes, it's positively okay, and right up at the top of the heap (alongside THE KISS OF THE VAMPIRE) of Hammer vampire movies. (I think I like REVENGE OF FRANK better than either of 'em, though.)

I haven't seen it in a bunch of years so a lot of it seems "new" to me. The early scenes at the chateau made me think of a reverse PSYCHO -- here on a stormy night, a stranded gal traveler hears from her host, an old lady, about the strange, mentally unwell SON she has stashed away. Then Marianne dismissing everything she's heard and liking the son and deciding to free him made me think of TWILIGHT ZONE's "The Howling Man."

I'm sure it was supposed to be a highlight, but the Village Girl Rising from the Grave scene had me laughing out loud, I'm afraid. First of all, a little bit of that noisy, laughing Greta goes a long way, so HER presence in the scene spoiled it right away; but beyond that, this corner of the "graveyard" is so obviously a tiny indoor set, and (my first laugh) the coffin is buried under about an inch of dirt -- the first good rain, or person walking across, would have exposed it. Second laugh -- the gray-faced girl with the dime-store fangs. Third laugh -- the "bat." That whole scene was so high-school-play, I'm afraid my laugh lines still hurt a little.

And, yeeeesh, all that Arch Oboler/LIGHTS OUT-style organ music, like from some spooky 1940s-era radio show -- my ears!!

Van Helsing's bag has on the side the letters "JVH." Did Hammer ever give him a first name (J_______)?

Oh well -- back to the movie. More chills than laughs in the second half, I hope. I'm kind of enjoying it, I have to admit.

Forty-Minutes-Later P.S. -- Not as many laughs in the second half, primarily because of the intrusion of comedy relief "specialist" Miles Malleson, but some enjoyable highlights -- props to Cushing, horrordom's gamest actor stunt-wise outside of Lon Chaney Jr. The burning Hallmark table-centerpiece of the windmill was NOT an image to "go out on," but ... they did the best they could, I guess. Big ups to Hammer for a solid two-and-a-half star vampire flick.