Last weekend, I was visiting a friend, and he offered to loan me the TCM "Greatest classic movies" Hammer 4-fer set comprising Horror of Dracula, risen from the grave, Curse of Frankenstein and must be destroyed. It's been about 17 years or so since I last sat through Dracula has risen from the grave and it was mainly to watch that again that I borrowed the set.
The set seems to me a total rip-off from Warner Home Video, btw. Only worth purchasing if the price is really low and you want the equivalent of what in the book trade used to be called "reading copies" of the films.
I haven't checked out Horror of Dracula yet--I will be watching it as I gave my old disc away back in '07, being then stupid enough to think WB was going to do an upgraded, restored release in honor of the film's 50th anniversary. (Some WB suit had fed fans some line about "doing better with our classic horror releases in the future" around this time, in an online chat.) The risen/grave redaction is the same print we've seen for years. For me it is perfectly watchable, but I have no doubts there could be improvements.
I always want to like this movie more than I wind up doing. It has a great cast, beautiful set design, some memorable images, one of the most outrageous sequences in the Hammer Dracula canon (Dracula gets impaled on a stake but doesn't die just because somebody doesn't pray--we conveniently ignore the fact that all the other times he does die, nobody is around to pray). And a beautifully understated performance by Barbara Ewing. If Ewing's character had had a couple more scenes, no doubt in my mind she would have owned the movie. The script is almost at the level of an outline rather than a fully realized story with properly set out characterizations, so most of what Ewing contributes is non-verbal. She really conveys the horror of Dracula's depravity with a degree that we otherwise just hear about, never really see.
Ewan Hooper who is otherwise unknown to me gets good marks for his work in the film. Barry Andrews gets good marks for being cute and vigorous, an element which is needed to counterpoint the overall grim atmosphere. Veronica Carlson is allowed to act for maybe two minutes but otherwise just has to languish as virginally as possible. Lee and Davies both produce performances I'd describe as workmanlike. Michael Ripper makes all of his scenes a bit of fun, and I wish he had been given more to do.
Bernard Robinson's set designs really do own the movie. My favorites are of course the rooftops between the lovers' bedrooms--a nod to Caligari, I always wonder?--and Dracula's revoltingly damp and noisome crypt next door to the bakery. James Bernard's score and Aida Young's production values keep things moving and help to distract one from the fact that this is a strangely unfinished bit of business.
H.
