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‘Evil begets evil on the sabbath of the undead’
The Satanic Rites of Dracula is a 1973 British Hammer movie directed by Alan Gibson. It’s the eighth movie within the Hammer Dracula franchise and the seventh and last to function Christopher Lee as Dracula. It was belatedly launched within the USA in October 1978 as Depend Dracula and His Vampire Bride.
Work started on what was tentatively titled Dracula is Useless and Effectively and Dwelling in London in November 1972. The title was a parody of the stage and movie musical revue Jacques Brel is Alive and Effectively and Dwelling in Paris, however Christopher Lee was not amused. At a press convention in 1973, he mentioned: “I’m doing it underneath protest… […] I believe it’s fatuous. I can consider twenty adjectives – fatuous, pointless, absurd. It’s not a comedy, nevertheless it’s bought a comic book title. I don’t see the purpose.”
Fortunately, the movie was ultimately re-titled and is a mix of horror, science fiction and a spy thriller, from a screenplay by Don Houghton (Shatter; The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires; Dracula A.D. 1972; Physician Who ‘Inferno’ 1970).
Plot:
A Secret Service agent (Maurice O’Connell) barely escapes from an English nation home, wherein Satanic rituals are celebrated. Earlier than he dies of his wounds, he reveals to his superiors that 4 outstanding members of society – a authorities minister, a peer, a common and a well-known scientist – are concerned within the cult, led by Chin Yang (Barbara Yu Ling).
To keep away from any reprisals by the minister, the key service calls in Scotland Yard’s Inspector Murray (Michael Coles) to work on the case independently. Murray (who had appeared within the previous Dracula movie) suggests consulting famous occult knowledgeable Professor Lorrimar Van Helsing (Peter Cushing)…
Evaluations:
“Dracula’s second romp by trendy London could also be a quite desultory affair, nevertheless it definitely marks an ideal enchancment on its disastrous predecessor, Dracula A.D. 1972. There are even one or two audacious touches which counsel how efficient a contemporary transposition of the Dracula fable could possibly be if it had been dealt with with sufficiently subversive zeal…” David Pirie, BFI Month-to-month Movie Bulletin, March 1974
“Although top-billed Lee solely has about quarter-hour of display time within the film (the bane of the Hammer Draculas, it appears), no less than he has some dialog this day out, together with a traditional line lifted from Bram Stoker’s unique novel. (“My revenge has unfold over centuries, and has simply begun!”) Cushing, after all, is his traditional masterful self, injecting gravitas into each scene he’s in.” Eccentric Cinema
“Regardless of the motion scenes and the makes an attempt to maybe make this extra like a James Bond movie, there’s truly a bleak, gloomy despondency to all the proceedings and you actually do get the sensation that that is the top of the Hammer collection and probably the top of the world as properly. Having Dracula because the chief of a corrupt band of British politicians and businessmen is a masterstroke and will efficiently be redone right now…” Home of Mortal Cinema
“Like the ultimate Hammer horror movie, Peter Sykes’ To the Satan a Daughter (1976), Satanic Rites makes an attempt, with a specific amount of ambition, to extra successfully fuse the standard style motifs with a practical, up to date setting and a method extra redolent of spy and motion films.” This Island Rod
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