Dracula (1958)
Directed by Terence Fisher
After Jonathan Harker attacks Dracula at his castle, the vampire travels to a nearby city, where he preys on the family of Harker's fiancée. The only one who may be able to protect them is Dr. van Helsing, Harker's friend and fellow-student of vampires, who is determined to destroy Dracula, whatever the cost.
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What critics say influenced Dracula
Based so loosely on Bram Stoker's novel that it performed the seemingly impossible task of making Tod Browning's classic look positively faithful, Hammer's Dracula was nevertheless a smash hit.
Lee's Dracula also evokes hidden desires within his victims, collapsing those British ideological barriers of repressive sexuality and good taste.
Peter Cushing carries most of the ho-hum script as Dr. Van Helsing, though the well-lit color photography, central to the Hammer formula, can't compare with the shadowy magnificence of Nosferatu (1922) or Dracula (1931).
Horror of Dracula (also known simply as Dracula) marks Lee’s first turn as the Count, as well as Peter Cushing’s initial performance as the indefatigable vampire hunter Van Helsing, and it’s likely the most tantalizingly creepy entry in this series of cinematic nightmares.
Generally speaking, the Hammer films were not remakes of the 1930s and ‘40s Universal horrors, though Fisher’s The Mummy (1959) borrowed liberally from The Mummy’s Tomb (1942), and Don Sharp’s The Kiss of the Vampire (1963) reworked elements from The Black Cat (1934).
Generally speaking, the Hammer films were not remakes of the 1930s and ‘40s Universal horrors, though Fisher’s The Mummy (1959) borrowed liberally from The Mummy’s Tomb (1942), and Don Sharp’s The Kiss of the Vampire (1963) reworked elements from The Black Cat (1934).
Peter Cushing carries most of the ho-hum script as Dr. Van Helsing, though the well-lit color photography, central to the Hammer formula, can't compare with the shadowy magnificence of Nosferatu (1922) or Dracula (1931).
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Fisher had previously worked on Gainsborough melodramas, editing the sexually teasing The Wicked Lady (1945) and co-directing So Long at the Fair (1949), a film that warned innocent English people about the danger of venturing abroad anticipating Tony Blair and George Bush by blaming the French for their problems.