Profoundly dull and interminably pointless, Dracula Prince of Darkness is proof, if ever it was needed, that Hammer was prone to bouts of commercial opportunism and aesthetic recycling.
Essentially a flimsy retread of Dracula (1958), Fishers blah blah story reconstitutes the original narrative and spreads it thinly across a self plagiarized slice of rotten bread. Excessively wordy and seemingly preoccupied with warming Andrew Keir’s monky butt on the open fire of Bray Studios’ long serving village inn for laughs, Prince of Darkness goes nowhere of any real interest and does so rather slowly.
Admittedly cute moments include the nerve wracked coach man who refuses to go one step further, Charles Tingwell being opened up to feed the ashes of Klove’s master and the excessively freaked out Barbara Shelley who spends roughly half her screen time wearing the “frightened” mask and the other dispensing with turn of the century frigidity to filthily indulge as Dracula’s undead slut.
Christopher Lee keeps schtum, refusing to utter a single word throughout the film – presumably in protest at the overwhelming vacancy of the script (provided by Jimmy Sangster, clearly lumbered with a bill to pay), while Terence Fisher’s direction is purely functional and desperately barren of the creative flourish evident elsewhere.
A decidedly workhorse affair in which the gaudy packaging far exceeds the bland content. Those who scream at the kicking of a sacred cow are encouraged to consider the equally woeful Brides of Dracula which similarly short changed its eager audience, and that the film’s best moments are found at the very start – in flashback to Dracula…
