To countdown to this year’s Halloween, Luke Owen reviews a different horror film every day of October. Next up, Christopher Lee’s second performance as Count Dracula in Dracula: Prince of Darkness…
In yesterday’s Countdown to Halloween entry, I said that Bela Lugosi was the most iconic Count Dracula and was the one actor who defined the role. However there are many who would argue that there is one man who gave a more captivating portrayal as the world’s most famous vampire – Christopher Lee. The star of Hammer’s Dracula series, his stunning interpretation of the Count is both haunting, imposing and incredibly frightening. And never is this more perfectly shown than in the 1966 Hammer Horror classic, Dracula: Prince of Darkness.
After originally taking on the character in 1958’s Dracula (released in the US as Horror of Dracula so as not to be confused with Lugosi’s movie), Christopher Lee would eventually play the role a further four times and was celebrated in every one of his performances. As the first Hammer Horror movie, Dracula is a landmark picture and also features a phenomenal turn by Peter Cushing as Van Helsing (the pair would work again together in several Universal updates). But with all of its critical and commercial success, there are those who feel its sequel Dracula: Prince of Darkness is a much better movie with The Hammer Story: The Authorised History of Hammer Films calling it, “the quintessential Hammer Horror”.
Set 10 years after the first movie, Dracula: Prince of Darkness sees four unsuspecting travelers end up in the Count’s castle through a series of strange events. There they are greeted by a butler named Klove who tells them that his deceased master always requested that the house be ready to greet guests – but little do they know that they are simply pawns in Klove’s game to resurrect Dracula. Using the blood of one of travellers, Klove brings the ashes of his master back to life so that he may continue his rule and restart his spread of vampirism.
Director Terrance Fisher once again shows why he was a master of horror filmmaking. With a very rushed production time (the film was being shot back-to-back with Rasputin, the Mad Monk), Fisher still manages to create a beautiful, chilling and creepy movie with some wonderful visuals, plenty of scares and some amazing performances from its leading cast members. Every character is well-written and defined and although it doesn’t have quite as epic a climax as Dracula, it still keeps its audience on tender hooks until the bitter end.
One of the most interesting things about Dracula: Prince of Darkness is the fact that Christopher Lee has absolutely no dialogue in the movie. For a character that has always been known for his charming and seductive ways (not to mention he has dialogue in the other four movies), Lee this time tells the entire story through his terrifying bloodshot eyes and nasty snarl. Like Bela Lugosi’s non-casting in Frankenstein, there are two versions as to why this is the case and it seems as though we’ll never know the full truth. If you ask Christopher Lee, he’ll tell you that he read the script and refused to read the awfully-written dialogue he’d been provided while screenwriter Jimmy Sangster will argue that he never wrote any lines for the character, stating in Inside Hammer that, “Vampires don’t chat [so] I didn’t write him any dialogue.”
Regardless of who is telling the truth, it’s one of the most fascinating things about the movie and it really adds to Lee’s gravitas in the role. Much like Lugosi, Lee’s biggest strength in playing Dracula was in his piercing eyes as well as his imposing screen presence (which is why he was also great as The Mummy and The Creature). It’s arguable that he doesn’t carry the charisma or charm that the Hungarian did, but Lee and Fisher were doing something different with the character of Dracula – making him truly terrifying. Whether he played the role better than Lugosi is up for debate and there are good arguments for both cases – but it’s an undeniable fact that the role will forever belong to Bela Lugosi.
Although Dracula: Prince of Darkness is one of the best Dracula movies in the Hammer collection, it would be hard to say it’s better than its predecessor. Fisher and Lee do everything right and the film is superb, but it doesn’t have a rivalry that quite matches up to Lee and Cushing. The film suffers from having no strong leading good guy and it just becomes a bunch of people attacking a superb villain. With that said, it’s still better than most Dracula movies and Lee’s dialogue-less performance is simply stunning.
Luke Owen is one of Flickering Myth’s co-editors and the host of the Flickering Myth Podcast. You can follow him on Twitter @LukeWritesStuff.
Originally published October 8, 2013. Updated November 7, 2019.
