Quick one: what do Satanists, Dracula and bubonic plague have in common? If you guessed all three are major plot elements of 1973’s The Satanic Rites of Dracula, you’d still be wrong, because all three may be featured here, but they still seem to have little to no relationship to each other. Well, no sensible associations, at least.
For reasons I could never fully determine, Christopher Lee’s count is using a group of secret Satanists placed in lofty positions to create a new super-strain of the plague which will be disseminated around the world. As this would bring about the end of humankind, it would seem Drac is acting against his best interests. Peter Cushing’s Van Helsing even points this out to him, and fails to get a satisfactory answer.
The base of operations for Drac and the Satanists is a mansion outfitted with some high technology for the time. It is odd to see a place where a black mass in the cellar is monitored from a control room with computerized technology. Why it is being monitored is never explained, nor why the henchmen engaged in that, and other security activities, wear a uniform of all black under rough suede vests of the type I tend to associate with cavemen of prehistoric pictures of this era.
Then again, it was the early seventies, which I guess is why the track playing under the opening and closing starts out sounding unmistakably like the theme from Shaft. I was hoping it would be a parody of that, with suitable lyrics: “Who’s the bitey Brit who’s the hit with all the sexy chicks? DRAC!”
In another room of that mansion, a guy is being kept prisoner. I found it odd the building is maintained in immaculate condition, except for this one room, where there is only an uncovered mattress on an old bed frame, the paper peeling off the close-set walls.
The captive is a detective (captective?), and he will manage to survive just long enough after his escape to get out some key information that fellow officer Michael Coles will use to continue the investigation. Unfortunately, Coles learns a high-level figure in their department is among the Satanists. In an odd discussion between the detectives, this question is posed: “Do you think it was just a black mass ritual?” I thought that was interesting, that such a ritual would have been so common in England at the time as to be just a black mass.
One thing I find deeply frustrating about this film is it doesn’t seem to have an internal logic to it nor does it adhere to any of the rules of established vampire lore. For instance, there’s a cellarful of Drac’s brides, and they recoil from heroes armed only with a gun. The good guys don’t have a cross, stakes or garlic, but only a gun. Similarly, Cushing makes a silver bullet from a melted-down cross. I guess he thought they were fighting one of those were-vampires.
Ever the professional, Cushing delivers a solid performance here, though he looks a bit lost. I know I would be if I had to try to sell some of the lines this script puts in his mouth. And Coles is a performer I do not recall having seen in anything before, but does a solid turn here as the main hero. The only element I found distracting about him is he reminded me so much of David Warner, complete with a haircut I swear was the same as that actor had in The Omen.
Even Lee refuses to phone it in for this, his last appearance as Drac for Hammer. He could have been forgiven if he had, as he had been ready to retire from the series a couple of pictures in the series earlier. I suspect most viewers will share that opinion.
Dir: Alan Gibson
Starring Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Michael Coles
Watched on Warner Archive blu-ray