Starring Clifford Evans, Edward de Souza, Noel Willman, Jennifer Daniel, Barry Warren
Directed by Don Sharp
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)
A honeymooning couple, after being stranded in a small village, welcome the dinner invitation of a doctor from a nearby castle, unaware that he's the head of a cult of vampires.
With sumptuous color photography and costuming, a good cast, and a driving pace from director Sharp, this is a fine vampire film from Hammer, set apart from their Dracula pictures, although with a similar look and feel. For example, James Bernard doesn't repeat any material from his Dracula scores, and incorporates a macabre piano piece into his main title that becomes a key musical interlude in the film. However, the themes still build maniacally to loud crescendoes in the same unsettling effect we've come to know from the composer. Set in a similar Bavarian Germanic locale as to a number of Hammer films, the art direction again features beautiful scenery belying the evil its innocent characters will soon encounter. Evans, the movie's vampire hunter, is not a copy of Peter Cushing's Van Helsing, but brings to life an oft-drunk if still determined man with a personal connection to one of Willman's victims. Willman is a fascinating vampire, wielding a haughty air, not about to hide his superiority complex in public company, even as he lures his victims. The highlight of the film may be a masquerade ball, perhaps influenced by Roger Vadim's earlier film Blood And Roses, with the men all outfitted in gruesome masks, as part of a plot to abduct Daniel from de Souza. Even more famous is the picture's ending, utilizing a rejected finale from Hammer's Brides Of Dracula, which despite the limitations of the special effects is remarkably choreographed and comes off very well.
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