Tonight I watched "The Satanic Rites of Dracula" (1973), starring Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. This is the real deal, people. The title alone is enough to terrify you. I've remarked in the past that I've long considered Lee as the scariest Dracula. I remember seeing him for the first time as The Count, not in a movie but in a framed poster at the Reseda Theater, for "Dracula Has Risen From The Grave". Talk about a Title That Terrifies You : that one's the all-timer. But even more than the title was Lee's image - a maniacal Count, eyes red and blazing, rising up from his coffin (another terrifying word), despite having a wooden stake through his chest. The tag line on the poster read "You Can't Keep A Good Man Down".
I was eight years old when I saw that poster, and boy oh boy did it ever make an impression on me.
I mean, Bela Lugosi was scary enough. I was already frightened to death of him, and I famously ran out of the Hollywood Wax Museum as a six year old in 1966, when I encountered Lugosi's Dracula as my Dad and a family friend escorted me through the place. I was so scared of Count Dracula in the Wax Museum that I ran right out of there. My Dad had to come outside to get me.
So you can imagine the effect Christopher Lee had on me when I saw his poster at the Reseda Theater two years later. By then I was a little less timorous as far as Monsters went, but I still wanted no part of a Dracula that could not only Rise From The Grave despite a stake through his heart, but who was also so wild-eyed and unrelentingly violent. That was how Christopher Lee portrayed Count Dracula, and though Lugosi will always be the Definitive Drac, for me it is Lee who is the scariest. He would never bid you "good eeve-ening" because he'd be too ready to tear you a new one the moment he saw you.
In "The Satanic Rites of Dracula", a team of detectives from Scotland Yard is conducting a surveillance operation on a countryside manor, which ostensibly is a house of psychic research, headed up by a Chinese woman of long standing residency. However, the detectives have evidence that one of their own has been witnessed entering the premises - and not just another detective but their Head Inspector! He is not the only high-powered gentleman who has been photographed entering the house, either. Also involved are a major industrialist, a General, and a wealthy landowner. But it is their own Boss they are most interested in, for if - like William Barr - he is in reality an arch criminal entwined in a nefarious scheme, they will have no choice but to raid the place and arrest him, along with everyone else on hand.
They have a detective who has infiltrated the manor, but he has been caught by the Chinese woman's security team. When we meet him, he has been tortured within an inch of his life and is tied to a cot in the mansion's basement. Against all odds, he manages to escape, and when he gets back to Yard headquarters, he has a tale to tell that will shock the living daylights out of his fellow inspectors.
You see, it isn't psychic research that is being conducted inside the manor, nor is it political subterfuge. The escaped detective tells his superiors that what he witnessed was a Satanic Ritual, complete with a Virgin Sacrifice and invocation of Dark Forces. He says there was a Pentagram Altar, black candles, red curtains and the whole works, and when you see the movie you will know he wasn't kidding.
The one thing he wasn't able to learn was the identity of whomever was behind this elaborate ritual. Certainly is was not the Chinese woman, a person of no real means. No, there must be someone higher up on the ladder of Evil Intent who is using this Manor House and these corporate and government bigwigs to conduct Satanic Rites for his own benefit.
Now who could that be?
We won't know until we consult Professor Van Helsing, or Peter Cushing to you and me. He is an expert on the subject of Satanism, and is also the last person to have seen Count Dracula alive, though that was in a prior Hammer Studios Dracula Movie, so Van Helsing has kept that information to himself until now.
He informs the detectives that he had killed the Count by driving a stake through his heart, but then adds the bad news that Ol' Drac could be revived, if the proper ritual was followed to the letter by Satanic devotees.
Aha! So that is what is going on, eh? The high-powered men seen entering the Manor are engaged in a plan to bring Dracula back to life! I shudder to think what horrors could result if they are successful....
The men from Scotland Yard hatch a plan to sneak into the place, bringing along Van Helsing's granddaughter for two reasons : 1) Being a Van Helsing, she has a thoroughgoing fascination with all things Vampiric, and 2) She is being played by Joyce Lumley, an English Horror Hottie of the type whose presence is required in Hammer films. The three find their way inside the house, and discover that the goings-on are even worse than they suspected. Down in the basement, they find the former secretary of their Boss, who disappeared a while back. There seems to be something different about her now.........she's gotten a bit Toothy shall we say.
Other females are chained down there as well, and some lay inside coffins (ooh, there's that awful word again!)
I'll not reveal any more of the plot, except to say that when the detectives get the hell out of the building, they go to visit a scientist who had a known connection to the manor when it was thought to be just a simple psychic research center. He is now a broken man, working on an experiment that has made him a nervous wreck. I cannot tell you any more about it, except to say that he may have been in Someone's employ, and that Someone may have an apocalyptic plan for the product of the experiment.
It's a doggone good thing that Professor Van Helsing is still around. As he tells the detectives, "there is more than one way to kill a Vampire". But when the Vampire is Christopher Lee, can you keep him killed? That's the real question.
You may find the answer if you watch "The Satanic Rites of Dracula", which I most "heart"ily recommend you do! You may want to leave the lights on while you watch, and you'll probably sleep with a ring of garlic around your neck afterwards, but what the hey. You've gotta have your scares at this time of year, and - trust me - you'll get 'em in this movie. Big time.
I think it will make my list of All-Time Horror Films. It's certainly one of the most terrifying Dracula movies I've ever seen, and it has a unique plot, too - Ol' Drac being investigated by the Cops.
Two Huge Thumbs Up for "The Satanic Rites of Dracula", a classic from Hammer Studios at the peak of their great run of horror films in the early 1970s. ///
That's all for now. It's Friday afternoon, the heat is still on (92 degrees) and the wind is still blowing, but there is no more smoke in the air, and it looks like the fires have been put out, thank goodness. Have a great afternoon and I will see you tonight at the Usual Time.
Tons of love! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
No comments:
Post a Comment