Good grief! Hammer Horror Films were very much in a flux come 1972, so in a bold (yet ultimately ill conceived) attempt to move with the times and grasp a new audience, they turned to old faithful to resurrect their hopes - Count Dracula. Pic starts with an exciting prologue in 1872, where we see Dracula (Christopher Lee) and Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) battling to the death. We witness Drac's ashes buried near to the grave of Helsing, and then it's fast forward to 1972...It must have seemed like a good idea at the time - letting loose one of the most iconic monsters in movie history in contemporary London - but it never works, lacking horror vibrancy and very much coming off as a pastiche of former glory. A rather excellent resurrection section of film aside, pic is just too quirky and kitsch for its own good, more laughable than anything remotely scary.Other major problems hurt the possibility of enjoying it on some sort of parodic level. Dracula never actually does much, confined to a small location (again!), so not really tearing up contemporary London as it happens, while the 1972 "youths" who form the core of the narrative are actually out of date themselves! Something further compounded by the quite dreadful musical score, which should have been confined in a locked safe a decade earlier. Some of the more notable Hammer touches try to battle there way through the murk, but it's a losing battle, the company's visual identity lost amongst a daft script and cartoonish direction.It has fans, and viewing it now some decades later one can at least embrace it with a modicum of endearment, but it's a poor pic and signals the start of a sad era for a great production company. 4/10

When audience's tastes started to change around the time this movie was made and movies from Hammer had their box office take decline, Hammer made some desperate attempts to regain their audience. One of the things they did was transport their "Dracula" movies into modern times with this movie, something that didn't please a number of people. Actually, I was quite open to the idea when I sat down to watch this movie, because I could see some great potential. However, I was let down by the end results. For starters, Dracula only appears in the movie about five or six times, and each time it's only for a brief appearance. Also, while the movie is set in modern times, almost nothing is done with this modern setting; with just a little rewriting, the movie could be taking place in the 19th century. But even then, the movie probably would come across the same way, being tired, familiar, and pretty predictable if you've seen your share of vampire movies as I have. I admit the end results could have been a lot worse, but I would only recommend the movie to fans of Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing when they are in a forgiving mood.

Growing bored with the current party scene, a youth drags a group of friends to an abandoned church in central London where they unwittingly resurrect Count Dracula through a supposed prank and forces the descendants of who destroyed him to do so again.For the most part this was an unnecessarily maligned and undervalued effort though it does have some minor problems. One of the film's best parts here is the fact that it manages to really capture a fantastic trend of mixing together the different styles employed at the time by offering the Gothic landscapes here alongside the more modern Mod trappings that were in fashion here. The Gothic markings here come from the rather grand church for their party as the supposedly abandoned effort comes complete with the broken-away and decayed landscapes, the absolutely chilling ceremonial hall where they manage to conduct their party in the middle of broken stained-glass paintings and crumbling pews makes for a truly enjoyable setting along the way here even if the best atmosphere is saved for the end with the battle in the church leads into the adjoining cemetery which is all sorts of Gothic fun, while the film's main issue of dealing with the direct lineage being in peril and the reawakening curse concepts come from the grandest stories of the genre's past being replayed to its fullest here. Even with all this good stuff here, the setting in concurrent-day London allows for the settings in the discotheques and dance stores that populated the scene which is all quite nicely brought in here to give this a solid mixture of the two worlds. Beyond this mixture, the fact of generating some solid action here is quite enjoyable with the opening carriage-top brawl between Dracula and Van Helsing in the past is so fast and frenetic the surprising location of the scene is fun enough while allowing for a marvelous opening. Likewise, the resurrection is truly unnerving and chilling with the entire thing pointed out to be a joke but it steadily grows into something more sinister as he continues on and the final appearance from the mist makes for yet another grand, stylistic entrance here for the Count as he makes his way through the church for his helpless victim. As well, the investigation into the deaths and the slow discovery of Dracula being alive come off really nicely here at generating enough interest to be enjoyable, while the multitude of fights here at the finale with the minions before the great showcase in the church with Dracula is highly enjoyable and ends this on a positive note. There's a few minor flaws here, mainly from the dated look and feel here by being mostly set at that specific point so there's a lot of goofiness here with the clothing, music and lingo used at the time that's just lame. Even still, there's little point here in Dracula being there with being relegated solely to the church for his brief appearances where his menace isn't as well-thought-out here and doesn't feel as strong as some of his other outings. Still, there's a lot to like here otherwise.Today's Rating/R: Violence, Language and drug use.

Modern horror movies love to place classic horror icons and characters in modern times and people love to hate modern horror movies for that! However, it really isn't something that's new, as this 1972 movie clearly demonstrates. It take the classic Hammer Dracula character and puts him into a 'modern' 1972 setting, no doubt also in an attempt to modernize and update the Dracula series, hoping this would boost the franchise again. It didn't really worked out though, since its one of the final Dracula movies from the Hammer studios but in all truth and honesty; I still quite liked it! Lets face it, all of the older Dracula movies set in more classic settings were starting to get extremely repetitive. All of the movies were being more or less the same, with very little variety to them. And while in essence this movie is also really being the same as any other classic Dracula movie story-wise, it still manages to feel like a breath of fresh air, due to its difference in style and settings.It definitely feels like a more modern movie, though of course in today's light, it still is a very outdated movie. It's really a product of its time, with some funky '70's clothing, music and type of characters. You could complain about it that this movie doesn't have enough vampire action in it, since this is definitely true but in all honesty, the same can be said for a lot of Dracula movies, also those from the Hammer studios. Blame Christopher Lee for that, since he was the one who was done with the character pretty early on already but agreed to still appear in Dracula movies as the count, probably just because it was quick, good money for him. But he always made sure his role was being as limited as possible and also his dialog always needed to be cut down to a minimum. But how can you be mad at Christopher Lee for that? after all, he's still an awesome and very charismatic Dracula, in every movie in which he plays the character.Also good news about this movie is that Peter Cushing returns in it, as professor Van Helsing. Or well, a decedent of him of course. It had been 12 years and 5 Dracula movies ago he starred opposite Christopher Lee. And he was truly missed in the 4 Dracula movies which that he didn't appeared in. Not just because he was a great actor but also really since he has just as much screen-presence and charisma as Lee and was capable of counterbalancing him. All of the Dracula movies without him basically lack a good and strong enough lead, that besides was being a memorable and likable enough character.You could argue about it if it truly adds something that this movie got set in 1972, since Dracula himself doesn't even ever get outside I believe but it does bring some originality and more creativity to the series, while still maintaining a good and typical Hammer studios horror style to it.7/10 http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/