The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1978)

Really Surprised!

Good concept, poorly executed.

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

I am a huge fan of the Hammer Dracula series, but this final installment to the series is in my least favorite and the worst film to boot. While Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee return as Van Helsing and Dracula, the film is barely a horror movie and lacks any ambiance or suspense. This film is a sequel to Dracula AD, which is also set in the then modern era and is directed by the same guy. I like Dracula AD, but this movie is a mess, playing off a lame conspiracy theory/end of the world plot. The Satanic Rites Of Dracula is a great title and Cushing and Lee are great, but the film is crap. The James Bond spy/60's/70's action thrown in a Dracula film does not do this film any favors. There is a quite a bit of nudity and blood, but that does not save this either. However, some fans of exploitation might find this enjoyable or awesomely bad entertainment. However, for me this is one entry I'd wish to ignore in the series.

This is the final film Sir Christopher Lee made for Hammer as Dracula, the role that brought him to the attention of so many. Derided by many over the years, not least by its leading actor, and released at a time when interest in Hammer productions had waned considerably, this once more reunited Lee with Peter Cushing as Van Helsing.This was one of the films horror films I ever saw, and I am happy to say I loved it then (when it was shown on television in the late 70s) and I love it now. This is the second time Hammer made a picture featuring Dracula in the modern day, and this time they got it absolutely right. The Count had been secretly recruiting people to his cult for years by the time the story starts, so he is already in a position of power. Living as the reclusive DD Denham, he is very rarely known to leave his tower-block office empire. What better place for a modern day vampire to exist, hiding in plain sight? Van Helsing (and daughter Jessica, now played by Joanna Lumley) is brought in by the police when it appears that Denham doesn't show up in photographs, suggesting something sinister. At first Van Helsing is treated with scepticism, but this changes when it appears The Count, sick of his undead unlife, is planning to sweep a plague across all of the Earth.I love that anyone who comes in to contact with Count's plan dies (Freddie Jones' Professor Keeley is the most memorable); I love that he doesn't dirty his hands with the mundaneness of his mission, rather leaving all that to the various political members of his cult. I love that an effort has actually been made to integrate Dracula into society – even when he is not in the story, he directly influences everything that happens. Equally, his victims are confined to Pelham House, which is not a shambling church or sprawling castle. His seduction/attack on Valerie Van Ost's Jane takes place in a seedy back-room prison, lit only by a swinging bulb. Into that scene Dracula enters, back-lit and surrounded by mist, and his impressive frame lights up the dilapidated chamber and Alan Gibson's fine direction encourages the allurement to be an almost hallucinatory experience.The ending, and Dracula's final dispatch, has also been slated by 'fans', but again, I like it. No elaborate theatrics (that is left to Michael Cole's Inspector Murray's spectacular rescue of Jessica), just two deadly, veteran rivals, slugging it out alone. The hawthorn bush is added to the list of 'all things deadly to a vampire' (it provided Christ with His crown of thorns after all), and that together with a stake through the heart and Hammer's Dracula is gone for good. This final, and significant film, is the only one of the series – and possibly Lee's only picture – that doesn't currently enjoy an official DVD release. There are low quality efforts available, but this surely deserves a release more worthy, allowing more people to re-value it.

Like the previous film Dracula A.D. 1972, The Satanic Rites of Dracula is one of the weaker Hammer Dracula films(for me easily the worst of the ones starring Christopher Lee as Dracula) and one of Hammer's lesser films as well. It is not a horrible film, not as much as has been said about it, but it is disappointing to see a film series that started off so strongly meander in this way.The Satanic Rites of Dracula does boast some decent photography and some very vibrant atmospheric colours(as well as the odd eye-bleeding one). It also has a couple of inspired moments; the scene in the basement with the female vampires is actually quite frightening and Freddie Jones' description of the bubonic plague and the scene with him and Cushing where it features in is chillingly riveting too. As well as some good performances, with Peter Cushing coming out on top.Cushing was one of those performers who could bring class and dignity to even the silliest material and he does that brilliantly here. Joanna Lumley is a welcome and improved replacement for Stephanie Beacham, doing more than just being sexy, she's pretty charming as well, while Freddie Jones is instrumental in making his scene so telling, the role is a small one but he makes a lot out of it, his delivery of the bubonic plague description being the main reason for its impact. Christopher Lee's suave appearance, towering presence and very menacing acting skills more than compensate for how underused he is, and that out of the not-many lines he has only his line about revenge while rather clichéd is memorable or halfway good.It was very clear however that The Satanic Rites of Dracula was hurt by its low budget, the Gothic ambiance in the production values is very much missed with the 70s production values looking too tacky and gaudy made for TV quality(giving it a too stuck in the 70s look) and the special effects are laughably fake, managing to look even worse than the bat effects in Scars of Dracula. Like with Dracula A.D. 1972, another thing that dates The Satanic Rites of Dracula terribly is the music, which sounds unintentionally cheesy, and doesn't fit the atmosphere at all and instead distracts greatly from it.The script is not quite as bad as in Dracula A.D. 1972(luckily there are not as many howlers here), but it still sounds very clunky and muddled, some scenes also have too much talk that goes nowhere which affects the pacing. The story had some interesting ideas on paper, unfortunately the execution of these ideas come over as underdeveloped and too bizarre for its own good, so it all feels confused and at worst incoherent. The mystery elements are too obvious, what little there is of horror apart from those two scenes suffer from being too silly, too tedious and having cheap visuals and the film is badly paced, with some of the first being interminably dull. The climax was also disappointing, Cushing and Lee give their all but it just goes on for too long and Dracula is defeated far too easily(most of the Hammer Dracula sequels had this too, but not to this extent).Overall, has some things that make it watchable and it was a little better than anticipated, but it's heavily flawed and disappointing and Lee did deserve more than what he got in his last outing as Dracula. 5/10 Bethany Cox

Given that it marks Christopher Lee's swansong as Count Dracula, it's quite fitting that the film raises the stakes - no pun intended! - by having him plot to destroy all of humanity. In many respects, it's the most modern film in the series. What's particularly interesting about it is that it features a greater degree of continuity than any of the previous films - continuity in the Hammer "Dracula" films is usually limited to "Dracula died in the last one so we need to resurrect him" - given that it's a direct sequel to "Dracula A.D. 1972". Michael Coles reprises his role as Inspector Murray from that film, becoming the only actor other than Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing to play the same character in more than one film in the series. Speaking of Lee and Cushing, this is the only film in the series in which they actually have a conversation since they don't speak to each other at all in "Dracula" and barely do so in "Dracula A.D. 1972". Since this is Lee's final performance as the character, it's a shame that Dracula's death scene is the weakest of the series. This is a problem with the script rather than Joanna Lumley's performance but Jessica Van Helsing seems to have lost most of her personality since the last film.