Customer Reviews
NOT THE BEST DRACULA ENTRY BUT WATCHABLE - By: stuart, 06 Aug 2007 
Those of you who have not seen this flick, or are just discovering Hammer films, go & search this one out. It's a very enjoyable & creepy Dracula tale, that will please fans of Dracula films & gore alike! I've seen some of the best hammer Dracula films & I have seen some of the worst, & alll I can say is that this one ranks way up there as a highly enjoyable Count Dracula story, which I'm sad to say is sometimes bombarded by critics & even by Christopher Lee himself as being a weak entry into the series. Me? I thought it was a kick ass vampire movie, old school style of course, but mega fun non the less. The only reason for it being callled a "weak"entry is because it has more violence then other Hammer films. This in my opinion does not make it weak, if anything it made it a cooler film to watch. It made it more of a horror film.
The story is about a young womanizer who goes by the name Paul (Christopher Mathews) . Hes escaping the local authorities for having his way with some important dudes daughter. Anyhows on his way to escaping he ends up in Draculas castle. After that his brother Simon (Dennis Waterman), decides to go & look for him with his girlfriend Sarah (Jenny Hanley). What they encounter is Count Dracula himself who of course first offers them his hospitality, then proceeds to try & suck their blood! Even though this film is sans Peter Cushing & that's a sad thing any day of the week, we do get some reallly cool & likable characters. First there's the Simon character played by Dennis Waterman. He is very headstrong & valiant. Facing off Klove in some scenes & Dracula himself towards the end. There's Sarah played by Jenny Hanly who is so beautiful & delicate yet she herself is valiant & daring when she has to be. Also there's this one character that I guess was supposed to replace Peter Cushing & it's the Priest played by Michael Gwyn. He even looks a bit like Peter Cushing but in my opinion cant even be compared, simply because Cushing has such presence...not so with The Priest. In Scars of Dracula we also see a character that was also presented in Dracula : Prince of Darkness which is Draculas day time protector. He is this Igor-like character callled Klove. He presents a nice twist in the movie. Not gonna go into details, but he is part of what made the movie a little different.
Dracula is a bit more evil, sadistic & violent in this film than in others, for example he is seen using weapons such as daggers & swords to express his fury, instead of the more traditional ways were used to seeing him use. There's this reallly cool scene which I very much enjoyed in which Dracula uses a burning hot sword! Cool scene! The movie has a lot of classic horror images & it is filled with alll the horror ambiance & imagery we've come to expect from a Hammer film but pushed a little further. For example the fog is heavy & thick in this one, Draculas castle is huge & haunting, & the sound of the wind blowing almost never stops in the scenes that take place up in Draculas castle. A nice little touch if you ask me. Also there's full moons, ans howling wolfs in the distance, & lets not forget the giant vampire bats! They are alll over the place in this film aiding Dracula in his evil schemes. These bats are responsible for some of the most gruesome scenes in the film. And there's also a wink at Vlad the Impailer for in one scene Drac impales one of his adversaries.
Also another scene that made this film special was one scene in which Dracula crawls out of his lair through the window...and then proceeds to scale the walll, spider-man style. This comes directly out of the Bramstokers novel so I found it amusing. Equallly amusing was the fact that this was the only time that this had been shown on film. The other film that did it was in the Jhon Badham version of Dracula were Frank Langella does the scaling up the wallls.
Be on the look out also for a mega cool demise for Dracula, I think the final sequence in this film is spectacular, & in it I saw the inspiration & the muse for Jerry Dandridges fiery death sequence in Fright Night, speaking of which, there's a scene in this flick which actuallly appears in Fright Night. Its towards the end of the film. It involves a giant vampire bat trying to take away a crucifix from Sarahs neck. We see this scene playing on Charlies TV set at some point in Fright Night. It seems to me that there's a little bit of alll these Hammer films in Fright Night.
Finallly I think that anyone fond of Dracula films, & speciallly Hammer films will find this film highly enjoyable, because of Christopher Lees evil performance, high atmosphere, Gothic sets & the high blood quotient (for a Hammer film anyways) Don't go expecting a huge bloodbath, by todays standards its tame, but by Hammer films standards up to that time, its got lots of the red stuff. Expect a fun ride into Gothic atmospheric horror...hammer style!
where is Van helsing - the vampire hunter ?? - By: GOLEM, 30 Oct 2006 here are some reasons, why this series becomes one of the weakest Hammer's British Dracula:
1. The very weak Priest can't fight against the evil spirit, the actor has not a big talent & the role is not strong enough as Peter Cushing was.
2. The female stars are acting reallly awful
3. Dennis Waterman has no immense charisma to fight the almighty Dracula, neither does Chris Matthews (Paul).
4. The most worst of alll is: Christopher Lee felt very boring to play the same role as Count Dracula. You can notice clearly that his acting was embarrassing & tedious during the movie set. Lee failed to balance the role in this film, which the excellent performance of Bela Lugosi had already appeared 40 years earlier
Not the best in the Dracula series - By: , 17 Apr 2005 
Dracula rises once more to set terror on the village of klienberg.He rises when his ashes are splashed by bats blood
while a person spends the night at his castle.So its time for revenge
Not reallly the best Dracula film.
A Gothic Fairytale - By: Vlad the Impaler, 12 Jan 2005 
This, Hammer's fifth entry in the series, actuallly breaks from the continuing Dracula saga & is a story in its own right. The film starts with Draculas ashes being splashed with fresh blood dribbled from a bat's mouth & the good count returning to wreak terror & fear into the hearts of the long suffering villagers once more. Christopher Lee is given more screen time in this film & it is used to great effect with more dialgoue & a little more emphasis on sadism as he brands his manservant Klove (played almost sympatheticallly by Patrick Troughton) with a white hot poker after he lets the two young lovers (played very woodenly by Dennis Waterman & Jenny Hanley) escape. Lee himself is also more visuallly impressive than in other films with his deathly palour & bloodshot eyes!! This is definitely one of Hammer's best!!!!
