A young man, on the run from the authorities arrives in a small village hoping to find shelter for the night. When they refuse to help him, he ends up at Dracula's castle. Days later, his brother and his girlfriend come looking for him.....
If there is one thing almost every one agrees on it's this : Christopher Lee is the greatest Dracula ever on screen. Personally, I think his first film as the Count, Hammer's 1958 Dracula is not only the best Dracula film, but it is Hammer's greatest film. However, after this classic, Hammer felt the need to keep bringing Dracula back in a series of films, that, Dracula Prince Of Darkness aside were not that good. The problem Hammer couldn't get over was that Lee didn't want to keep playing the role, as the size of the part was getting reduced to a few brief scenes but also Hammer couldn't come up with a story worth telling. It reached almost ridiculous levels in 1968's Dracula Has Risen From The Grave where Dracula pulls a stake from his own heart. Another and major issue was that with the exception of Peter Cushing's Van Helsing and Andrew Keir's Father Sandor in Dracula Prince Of Darkness, none of the other Dracula films had worthy adversaries, as the series began to feature younger rising stars none of whom were really worthy of Dracula. Often, this resulted in Dracula's screen demise to be more about luck than knowledge or skill. Such is the case here, in a film that really makes no sense plot-wise at all.
At the beginning of the film, Dracula is resurrected by a bat, and then we see the villagers, after a girl is killed, go to burn down the castle and kill Dracula. However, he not only survives but takes his revenge by using bats to attack and kill the towns women who have taken shelter in the church. It's actually an effective moment, probably the best moment in the film.
The film then introduces us to our hero Simon, girlfriend Sarah and the brother Paul. Paul has a reputation of being a ladies man and it's when he's caught with a woman in her parents home, the father accuses him of rape, something the girl does nothing to deny, forcing Paul to leave the town.
But it's when he ends up in the village, the film's problems really begin. Despite the villagers knowing what might be out there or that he might end up at Dracula's castle, they cast him out the village. Of course, you know where he's going to end up.
At the castle, he encounters Dracula, his servant Klove and a girl, Tania. Invited to stay the night, Paul goes to his room and shortly after this, Dracula bites Tania. Now, this is confusing. If Tania was a normal woman, why was she at the castle? If she wasn't why did Dracula bite her?
Anyway, Tania promptly goes off to Paul's room and sleeps with him. She wakens later and is about to feed on him, that is until Dracula shows up and promptly stabs her to death. Wait, what? Why would he do that? In a later scene we see him torturing Klove. It's clear we are dealing with a more sadistic Dracula...that or Christopher Lee was taking his frustrations out on playing the role again, on-screen!
Locked in his room, Paul discovers a window below, but once he gets there, is trapped when Klove pulls the curtains up he used for climbing. The room he is in, has no way in or out apart from the window and contains only one thing. Dracula's coffin.
The film then cuts back to Simon and Sarah coming looking for Paul and results in a final confrontation with Dracula at the top of the castle, where a lightening strike brings the firey conclusion to the story.
Just from the above you can see many issues with the story there, but there are others. Dracula using control of the bats would have helped during the climax. Why didn't he bite Paul instead of impaling him? How can Dracula see with his eyes closed, attempting to hypnotise Simon at one point? You would think some of these details would perhaps be explained either here or at the very least in one of the previous Hammer Dracula films.
To be fair to the film, Scars Of Dracula is a continuation of the series that began with 1958's Dracula, so this is still the same Count as in that film and all the others. However it is because this is the same Count, you can't help but compare it to the first one and on every single level it fails.
The younger cast, Dennis Waterman as Simon, Jenny Henley as Sarah, Christopher Matthews as Paul, try hard, but the characters are very cliched and so poorly written you simply don't care for them. Patrick Troughton plays Klove and isn't bad in the role.
But you watch a Hammer Dracula film for Christopher Lee. Hammer knew this and according to Lee himelf in interviews, emotionally blackmailed him into returning to the role to keep Hammer going on. In this film Christopher Lee is by far the best thing about it yet you can almost tell his heart isn't in the film at all.
The film was directed by Roy Ward Baker, but while he did direct some very good films in his career, this is not one of them This feels more the work of someone fulfilling an obligation than someone trying their best, resulting in a film that is dull, even during the climax of the film.
He's not helped by the script written by Anthony Hinds under the name John Elder. Hinds had written some good films for Hammer, The Curse Of The Werewolf (still my favourite and best werewolf film ever) and Brides Of Dracula, the sequel made to Dracula starring Peter Cushing's Van Helsing, when Christopher Lee refused to return as Dracula (which is why that film's title makes no sense!). But his work here is poor.
It didn't help Hammer that the audience's mood for horror was changing. They didn't want the gothic horrors anymore, thanks to the likes of Night Of The Living Dead the audience wanted new ideas and monsters. The classic ones weren't working anymore. Hammer tried to adapt, even bringing Dracula back twice more in modern takes on the character, the second of which The Satanic Rites Of Dracula had an interesting idea buried in there to be fair. But they just couldn't make the films modern audiences wanted. Within 6 years of Scars Of Dracula, despite some late, great films like Hands Of The Ripper, Hammer were gone as a film company.
It's unfair to lay the blame fully on Scars Of Dracula for this. The seeds of Hammer's demise were sown long before this film came along, perhaps as early as 1960 when Psycho had been released. But films such as Scars Of Dracula certainly didn't help.
Christopher Lee will always, in my opinion, be the greatest Dracula ever on screen. But Scars Of Dracula is not the Dracula film I will remember him for. It is by no means the worst film Hammer ever made, but it is well short of their best.
Rating - 3/10
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