Weirdhouse Cinema: Dracula A.D. 1972

Published Oct 27, 2023, 9:37 PM

In this episode of Weirdhouse Cinema, Rob and Joe discuss the late-franchise Hammer horror film “Dracula A.D. 1972,” in which Chrisopher Lee’s vampiric prince of darkness rises from the ashes a century later in groovy London. Are hippies and the descendents of Doctor Van Helsing up to the challenge? Find out…

Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb.

And this is Joe McCormick. And today on Weird House Cinema we're going to be talking about the Oh. I usually say the year, but now I'm not so sure. Was it actually released in nineteen seventy two?

Yes it was, And I want to stress Joe that it was released nineteen seventy two of the common era.

Okay, not nineteen seventy two BCE. Right, this is Dracula AD nineteen seventy two, the Hammer horror movie starring Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing.

That's right. So last week we not only did a Frankenstein movie, we did one of the best known and most beloved of all Frankenstein movies, nineteen thirty five is Bride of Frankenstein. And to follow that up, I just I have been feeling weeks in advance. It's like we would need to do a Dracula movie after that. But which one? Right, There's so many Dracula films to choose from. We've been talking about doing nineteen thirty one's Dracula or the Mexican Dracula film that came out the same year. Those I think are both fine choices. But I found I was craving not just a drac movie, but a weird spin on Dracula, which brings us back to the world of late franchise ingenuity, which is something I always enjoy. You know that point in a film franchise where people realize, all right, we've done the same thing over and over again. We need to go in a new direction. We need to spice it up. What can we do?

Dracula goes West or Dracula in Space that's actually that's a real movie, Dracula three thousand.

Yeah, yeah, these are all valid choices. Dracula and the Old West has also been done. I just love it when a franchise gets maybe a little desperate and starts taking some risks. And that's where we are with the seventh film. In Hammer Horror Dracula series kicked it off with fifty eight Stracula the nineteen sixties, The Brides of Dracula, then Dracula Prince of Darkness in sixty six, then Dracula Has Risen from the Grave in sixty eight, then Taste the Blood of Dracula in seventy well, and then we have Scars of Dracula I think that's the same year. And then we get to Dracula AD nineteen seventy two, which had the fabulous working title of Dracula Today.

It sounds almost like the name of a publication, like it's a magazine for the modern Dracula connoisseur.

Yeah, alright. I mentioned it to my wife and she's like, it sounds like a morning show, like Dracula hosts the morning show. It's Dracula Today, and he's got his hot mug of blood. So yeah, I think it's so at this point in the film franchise, Yeah, we're definitely in that experimental mode and it would stay that way for the duration. The film to follow this up was seventy three is The Satanic Rites of Dracula, which I have not seen, but I've definitely flagged it because it's my understanding that it's sort of a Dracula spy movie.

Yes, I have seen this one. I've mentioned this on the show before, but this was an especially hilarious movie viewing experience because I watched it with early YouTube auto generated subtitles with a group of friends, and the subtitles were all wrong. There was one point where somebody I don't remember what the actual line in the movie was, but the subtitle took it for the boat carrying general freeballs.

General freebops. Okay, I don't think he's established in this film, though some of the characters from this film will carry on into the next one.

There's also a line that the subtitles interpreted as Peter Cushing or a Peter Cushing type guy answering a telephone and saying saw it on Twitter, and I was shocked.

All right. So we've definitely flagged that one for later. The final Dracula movie from Hammer Pictures was actually a co production with Shaw Brothers. It is nineteen seventy four, is the Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires and East Meets West Vampires film. This one's been on the list for a long time. I haven't seen it yet, but I mean, how can you resist such a mashup?

How could it go wrong? I've got to see that one.

So yeah. Today's movie, Dracula AD nineteen seventy two, takes the Dracula franchise into modern times in a way. It's kind of a predecessor to nineteen seventy nine's Time after Time, which we previously talked about in the show.

Oh yeah, I can see that. I mean so in that episode we came up with a taxonomy of different kinds of time travel movies. This isn't exactly a time travel movie because nobody actually travels, there is no time machine, nobody leaves the time they're naturally in. But it is a generation spanning movie where the vampire is slain in one era and resurrected in another. So you might expect there to be some I don't know so kind of a fish out of time elements like we talked about in that episode where the character from the past is forced to deal with how things have changed in the modern world. I must say, none of that. There's nothing, nothing like that at all. Yeah.

And I've seen some reviewers who come more recent reviewers who've commented on that, like saying, why is there not like a fish out of water, a fish out of time plot element to this? And I'm part of my thinking on that, I'm thinking, Okay, well, you don't want to make Dracula look foolish. This film takes Dracula's status seriously, and Dracula remains like a severe threat. He is just hunger and evil. But on the other hand, as we've seen in other films, it can be done. You can do the Fish out of Time at least a little bit and have the character that is engaging and it still be fearsome. The example that comes to mind, just off the top of my head would be The Terminator. It's not much of a Fish out of Time, but there is that one funny moment where he tries to go in and buy a plasma rifle from Dick Miller.

Yeah, yeah, just what you see pal.

Yeah, And that's a funny moment, but it doesn't make the Terminator less terrifying in that film. So there's some sort of balance that would have been possible with Dracula going out at night and feeding on hippies. But Dracula just doesn't get out in this movie and do that sort of thing.

That's exactly the issue. So the movie is trying to be a it's trying to be conceptually Fish out of Time. It's trying to say, okay, we have this monster from a different era. You know, he came to London in this movie. In the eighteen seventies and suddenly he's here in the nineteen seventies, and whoa, it's a crazy context. There are all these hippies and cars everywhere. This is not what we expect to see surrounding Dracula. But Dracula is never like, he never meets any of that stuff in his resurrected form. He just hangs out in a church. So I don't think he ever even sees any of the signs of the modern world.

Right right, He's just ordering like takeout delivery essentially the whole time. He doesn't get out and see that world. You know, whether he'd be phased by the changes in the world, who can say. I mean, maybe maybe Dracula just sees blood at the end of the day and so it doesn't matter. He's like, that's it doesn't it doesn't matter at all. Just bring me the blood. But maybe you could have had some neat moments.

The Dracula in this movie does not seem very impressed or even very reactive to anything around him. He you know, there's the part where his lackey raises him from the dead and says, master, I've brought you back, and he just says it was my will. He walks past him, So I don't know. I kind of think that that aloofness and high handedness might come through as well if he were forced to, you know, be around automobiles or something and be like, you wouldn't even notice them. He just walked past him.

Yeah, it would have been interesting to see how they would have handled it. Now, one thing I want to mention about this this particular the movie is with its elements of like hippies and groovy London counterculture to the limited extent that it is explored. As I was digging on this one, I was like, oh, man, I wonder if this one is Electric Wizard certified, because the themes just seem to fit too perfectly for this to not be the case, And so I looked it up. I grabbed the book Come My Fanatics, A Journey into the World of Electric Wizard by Dan Franklin, which came out earlier this year, and it basically is just filled with various movies references and movie mentions that line up with their work, and it is in fact cited as an influence. Dracula eighty nineteen seventy two is cited as an influence on the excellent two thousand and seven album which cult today.

I know the Wizard and I can see this movie being right up their alley. They love some witch Finders and some hammer Horror and all that good stuff.

Yeah, I mean satanic rites of Drugula obvious. Obviously there's a connection there. The title of track on the album which cult today, it's one of Dracula today. And then they also have that Torquamada seventy one track which also has sort of like similarities to the title here. So yeah, I can see this one as having been a strong influence now that it's been pointed out to me.

Now here's a question. This is a convention. I can think of several examples of movies like this where it's Dracula and then just the number of years. So there's Dracula nineteen seventy two, Dracula two thousand, and Dracula three thousand, which is the one in space with Casper van Deen.

Is that one in the year three thousand?

I guess it's supposed to be. That one's really really not good like z Grade, though it does make one choice that I really like, which is it sets it in the future. So they're on like a space ship. I think Casper Vanden's character is Captain von Helsing of the USS whatever it is, maybe the Demoter, I don't know, but the like they come across Dracula in a Darrylic spaceship. But then when they wake him up, is he like a spacey Dracula. Is he wearing kind of a spooky space suit. No, he's just dressed in like a Halloween store Dracula costume, with like the cape and the high collar and the ruffles.

You know. I doubt they pulled it off and made it work, but on paper, I respect the choice. I do like it when Dracula is like powerful in spite of the tropiness of the way he is dressed. And I think that an example that can be found in this movie because Christopher Lee, again his Dracula, maybe doesn't have as much to do, doesn't get to do as much killing and exploring as we would like, but it is still a strong screen presence. It is still like a terrifying vision of Dracula.

Yeah. I think Christopher Lee is almost always pretty strong. I think he's good in the moments he has, though I do think the movie under uses him. We kind of don't get enough Christopher Lee, and we don't get enough of several of the movie's big selling points.

That's true, that's true. Oh but come back to what you were saying. Yeah, Dracula said. But it was also released as Dracula's seventy three in France and Spain as it came out in seventy three, so they had upgrade the title. Nobody wants last year's Dracula. I mean, come on, but it's worth looking up the French poster for Dracula seventy three because it's absolutely stunning. It's like, I don't even know how to explain it. It's got this weird kind of I don't know, almost kind of like our deco looking font. And then Dracula's head is like this psychedelic floating visage in the sky, gazing hungrily at bikini women.

It really doesn't look like Christopher Lee. It's more like a floating monster mask that is bleeding colors into the stratosphere.

Yes, so look that up. It's good. Now. I want to stress that this movie is not everyone's favorite. Roger Ebert only gave it one star, single star. Michael Weldon of Psychotronic Film Guide called this one's time quote a big mistake. And I even touch base with Hammer fan and former producer of the show Seth Nichols Johnson, who again big fan of a lot of Hammer films. He says this is not one of his favorites. He likes it, but is not one of his favorites.

Fair enough. I think it'll make for a good discussion on the show, But I say it's not one of the best Hammer Horror Draculas. I think Horror of Dracula is much better.

No, No, I think to enjoy this film, you've got to be on board for again late franchise innovation, for some sort of you know, risky if not completely realized, dream of where Dracula could take you. And I guess also the further away we are from it in time, the more it has been allowed to age, because I know a lot of these commentators were talking about when it first came out. Weldon criticized it as being already dated when it hit the screen, But we've had decades for this film to mature, and now we can appreciate it for what it is.

I suspect people might have found the hippie caricatures more grating in the seventies. I find them delightfully amusing.

Now, yeah, yeah, I think that could be part of it. All right, elevator pitch for this one. I would say these hippies are such a drain on society. Of course, they resurrected Dracula.

It's the dope, it's the Devil music, it's the Dracula rites.

That's right, my other one that came up with his parents. Be aware of these warning signs that your twenty five year old teenager may be involved with drugs, sex, black masses, rock music, and Dracula resurrection.

We do have several parenting scenes where Peter Cushing is trying to exert a positive influence on his granddaughter Jessica. You know, he's trying to figure out, like, hey, are her friends on the level, but it just doesn't go anywhere.

No, all right, let's listen to some trailer audio.

Yesterday, Draculife was the most fearsome being the screen has ever seen. Today tonight you you.

You could be Dracula's next victim.

Something new yet as old as time. Come on, Johnny, a date with the Devil. Are you ready? He's ready?

He's waiting to freak you out right out of this world.

Night September eighteenth, eighteen seventy two, one hundred years ago to the day.

You witnesses.

You must swear before the name of the devil to keep it secret.

Who knows about vampires?

For God's sake, my.

Grandfather died fat, most terrible us go.

To them out of altar.

The year is nineteen seventy two, a leap year in horror, a vintage year for vampires. Come the time for the masters of horror to meet again in.

The twentieth century.

Come to me, Condracula.

All right. Well, if at this point you would like to go watch Dracula eighty nineteen seventy two for yourself, well you're in luck because this one was released through Warner Brothers, so it's widely available. It's even currently available in the States, at least on Max. Looks like they have a number of Hammer horror flicks in there, so yeah, go crazy. You can also get it on basically any physical or digital format you desire.

All right, let's do those connections.

All right. The director is Alan Gibson, who lived nineteen thirty eight through nineteen eighty seven, Canadian director who worked a lot in the UK, with TV work going back to the mid sixties, but it's his horror work that most remember him for today. His credits include nineteen seventies Goodbye Jim and I, which I believe is some sort of scary twin movie this film, of course, and its follow up nineteen seventy three is The Satanic Rights of Dracula. He also continued to work in TV and directed episodes of the anthology series thriller Tales of the Unexpected and Hammer House of Horror. In fact, one of the Hammer House of Horror episodes he directed was The Silent Scream, starring Peter Cushing, but also a young Brian Cox, who was actually I think we did the Math. He would have been like thirty four at the time.

Wow, it's hard to understand that I'm looking at Brian Cox younger than I am now.

Yeah, yeah, he came out with I mean, Brian Cox has always made a career of you know, playing at least you know, heavies and formidable personalities. Formidable personalities, yeah, not so much, you know, leading man type stuff. So yeah, he's one of those actors who, perhaps even early on, always looked like he was in his late forties at least. But great actor. I haven't seen the episode, but I'm might have to seek it out.

And you said it's also got Peter Cushing.

Yeah, yeah, Peter Cushing. You know, it's just he was he was on speed dial for Himmer. They needed him for something. He's like, yeah, is it a movie? Fine? There TV show, Great, I need a flight to China. Great, Let's make it work.

It's nice to have steady work.

Yes, all right. The screenwriter for this one is Don Hoten, who lived nineteen thirty through nineteen ninety one, British television screenwriter and producer whose writing credits include thirteen episodes of Doctor Who from nineteen seventy, The Satanic Rites of Dracula, the Seven Golden Vampires movie, and also another show, Brothers Hammer co production from seventy four, an action picture titled Shatter. I believe Peter Cushing is in that one as well. Okay?

Is it about a man who has the power to shatter?

It looks like it's kind of like crime or act crime action, maybe spy. I'm not sure. You know, it's one of those non horror Hammer films that perhaps gets re explored less in the modern era. I see, all right, Well, who's playing the title character of Count Dracula. Well, of course it's Christopher Lee, who lived nineteen twenty two through twenty fifteen. We've talked about Lee before on the show, as he's popped up in numerous films we've discussed already and is just going to keep popping up because he's an icon of horror. But here he is in one of his most iconic roles, the one that influenced his casting and presentation in late career hits like the Star Wars prequels like Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films. He was, I think, rather famously tired of playing Dracula at this point in his career, or at least tired of playing Dracula the hammer away. I'm to understand the nineteen seventy Jess Franco picture Count Dracula was more in line with what he wanted to do with the character at that point in his career. But still, again, it's a great screen presence, and one can only imagine that he enjoyed working once more with his friend and a long time co star of twenty two films, Peter Cushing.

What is his Do you know what his take in the Franco count Dracula is. How's it different?

I haven't seen it in its entirety yet, it's been It was actually a film I was considering for this month on Weird House because it's supposed to be, first of all, not as sleazy as other just Franco films, like it's a little more mainstream, has a great cast, you have like Kloskinski playing Renfield in it. But it's supposed to be more of like a sympathetic tragic Dracula. And I'm to understand it's the first Dracula film in which we initially meet an elderly Dracula who is then made young again through the consumption of blood.

Oh okay, so this has many things in common with what would later happen in Bram Stoker's Dracula, directed by Coppola, which we were just talking about in our Core episodes earlier this week. Yeah. Yeah, that has the at least partially sympathetic Dracula. Adds in a love story for Dracula, which I want to emphasize is not in the book. Dracula is not in love. He does not romance in the book. He is just a demon and he's just bad. And that also has a Dracula who when Jonathan Harker first meets him in Transylvania, he looks very old and decrepit, but by the time he reaches London he is young and rejuvenated and old many So.

Yeah, the Dracula that we get in Dracula eighty seventy two is certainly the demonic Dracula. In fact, they call him the demon vampire in the pro to the picture. He is just pure supernatural hunger. He has more in common with the Terminator than some of the more sympathetic film versions of Dracula that we've seen in this film's way.

Yeah, just a mean, nasty, vengeful, uncomplicated, demonic vampire. Now I mentioned this earlier, but just to get a little bit deeper into it. I feel like Christopher Lee is good in this movie. But one of my major complaints about the film is that it is reserved in the deployment of its key selling points, one of them being Christopher Lee. He's a kind of He's an ineffectual vampire. He doesn't have a lot of lines, and he has limited screen time, and that screen time is confined to basically just two locations. It feels almost like they were trying to make sure they could shoot all of his scenes on the same day and you could see how his like the fact that he never leaves the church he's resurrected in in the modern era unless he I don't think there's ever a scene of him going anywhere else. Is there. I can't think of one.

I don't think so.

Yeah, so he's just there, so you could say, well that that speaks to his power, right, so you know, he just stays there and he has his servants bringing him victims, so like he doesn't he's so powerful he doesn't even have to go out hunting. But I don't know. I feel like this movie would deliver more on its promise of Dracula nineteen seventy two AD if it had both more of Dracula on screen and going out and doing things in the world, and had more of the world of nineteen seventy two a D which it's it's also actually relatively tame on save for like one silly party scene. I think what they should have done is have Dracula go to the coffee bar. While it's like hoppin' and everybody's partying and he goes and I don't know, I guess he wouldn't dance, but he would at least like get encounter hippie culture there.

Yeah, like kill Nick Jagger in the street or something, right, Yeah, yeah, I think just one sequence of him feasting on hippie blood elsewhere in London would have gone a long way. And if you were determined to have him not leave the churchyard, maybe just like one scene where he like looks out the window at night and like sees what's out there. You could even play it up like, oh man, if Dracula gets loose in nineteen seventy two London, it's all over, Like that's why he has to be stopped here before he has reached full feasting power again. But they don't really explore any of those ideas.

I mean, it's easy to forget because the book itself is very old now, but I think one of the themes in the novel Dracula is the idea of some part of the old world coming into the New world. It's like, you know it that this you know figure from a decaying castle in the Carpathian Mountains out in the forest at the at the edge of Europe, as these people would have thought of it coming to the biggest metropolis that they knew of coming to modern London.

Yeah, that's a great point. So it's already built into the text quite a bit there that he's traveling across time and space to something new and yeah, and to come back to time after time. One of the great serious threads in that is that when Jack the Ripper arrives in the modern era, he's like, this place is great, Like I can really thrive here, like and you know, And of course that would come later that film, but a similar vibe I think would have gone a long way here. All right, So that's Dracula. But you can't have a hammer Dracula without a Hammer van Helsing. And that's where Peter Cushing comes in playing This is technically going to be a dual role because he starts off playing Lawrence van Helsing, but then we'll go on to play his descendant Lauramir van Helsing.

I got some notes on these names. I'll come back to that.

So Peter Cushing lived nineteen thirteen through nineteen ninety four. Again we've discussed Peter Cushing on the show before, and he's just going to continue to pop up because he was. He was, like Christopher Lee, just an iconic player in horror and sci fi cinema of the day. And I think he was even more prolific. He's one of those actors that everyone seems to have had nice things to say about, both personally and professionally. Just a consummant pro no matter what the material had him doing or saying, he always he always brings an air of dignity to most pictures. This movie is from the later stage of his career, after the death of his wife in nineteen seventy one. In fact, film just eight months after her passing. This is an event that apparently took a huge toll on him. In fact, he was apparently originally intended to be to play the father of the character Jessica van Helsing in this movie, but he had visibly aged so much since his wife's passing that they rewrote the script a little bit to make him be her grandfather. Oh okay, So you know, I think we might be forgiven for viewing films from this era of his career and detecting that loss and that distance in his screen presence, especially in the various examples of films that cast him as a man who's experienced a great loss. But you know that being said again, consummate professional. He does a solid job in this and I'm to understand he actually does his own stunts in the opening, which is wow, which concerns like a thunderous carriage based action sequence. So it's you know, it's not just like, oh, he you know, he fell out of a chair. No, like he's on like a moving carriage. It looks kind of dangerous, and apparently he does whatever stunts are required of him. There.

Wow, I'm impressed. Well, I was going to say that, you know, I love Peter Cushing, but I'll admit sometimes he phones it in. You give him a break. He did a lot of movies and a lot of very similar movies, but strangely, I thought it seemed to me he was putting a lot of feeling into this one. This is not one of his best written roles, but he really exceeds what is required of him, and there was more emotion in this performance than I expected.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's not just about the man who must defeat the monster, but there's like someone in his life he's trying to protect as well, and not only protect from supernatural threats, but also just sort of ambiguous social threats as well that he's concerned about.

Yeah, his protective care for his grandchild comes through as genuine emotion. Yeah.

Yeah, Now playing that grandchild, Jessica van Helsing is Stephanie Beacham More nineteen forty seven. This is our young, prematurely white haired descendant of the original Van Helsing. Stephanie Beacham is an English actor of stage, screen and television, with a very long and still very active career. She'd mostly done TV in stage at this point in her career, but had popped up in some films, including Roddy McDowell's tam Lynn from nineteen seventy and The Nightcomers from seventy one. After Dracula eight nineteen seventy two, she acted in seventy Threes and Now The Screaming Starts, seventy six's House of Mortal Sin and Schizo, and nineteen eighty one's Horror Planet. TV credits include forty nine episodes of The Colby's twenty three episodes of Dynasty, in which she plays Sable Colby I'm not sure how this works, but I'm guessing this is the same character. There's some sort of like I don't know if this was a spinoff of Dynasty or if like a character from the Colby's joined the cast of Dynasty. I'm not sure how soap operas really work.

I don't know either, but.

Anyway, it was apparently a big role for her. It's like the top thing that's mentioned diner on her IMDb page. But she was another STI she's like on the Love Boat. She apparently played Margaret Thatcher on an episode of Alfe Poles. Yeah, so there's that. I could not find a screenshot of it. I was really looking for it, could not find it. But she's also been on things like Star Trek, The Next Generation, SeaQuest, and Coronation Street.

I think she's quite good in this though. She has the same issue that almost all of the teenagers have, which is that none of them seem like teenagers. I think I don't know how old they're supposed to be. I would guess they're supposed to be like, I don't know, eighteen to but they all come off as about thirty or at least late twenties.

Yeah, I think she was like twenty five at the time.

Not really a problem. I just think it's funny when movies have these these groups of all extremely adult teenagers.

All right. The next actor of note is Christopher Neim playing Johnny Alocard. This is the drugish occult enthusiast in the group of friends that we meet, the young Londoners. He cares about only one thing, and it is, of course, the resurrection of Dracula. He has a Dracula cultist.

It's interesting that I think there are a lot of stories that where people become the servants of a satanic entity or demonic overlord so that they can pursue a party lifestyle and hedonistic pleasures. Like the powers they acquire by serving the demon lord give them the ability to party the way they want to. He's the other way around. Johnny Alucard parties in order to serve a demon lord, like he apparently only does the swing and hippie thing in order to attract a group of friends who can be brought as snacks to the vampire that he wants to resurrect.

That's right, Johnny Alcard just wants to do Dracula stuff, that's all. He wants in life, and he's going to do whatever it takes to get there. So Johnny Alickhard is played by Christopher Niem born nineteen forty seven. He has a great look. He brings some great hungry energy to this role as a Dracula cultist and vampire wanna be. He kicked off his film career in the nineteen seventy environmental disaster film No Blade of Grass, followed by seventy one's Lust for a Vampire. This is These are small roles I'm to understand, but this role in Dracula eighty nineteen seventy two, so it to have been a big step up for him. He goes on from here to work steadily in all manner of pictures and TV shows, including thirty episodes of Days of Our Lives nineteen eighty seven, Steel Dawn, a really weird sounding nineteen eighty eight sci fi horror film titled Transformations. He did episodes of Dynasty episodes of Dallas. He pops up in the nineteen eighty nine James Bond film Licensed to Kill, in which he plays the agent that is sent to collect the rogue agent James Bond.

Mmmm, yeah, okay, this is the one where Bond go he like quits I six and he goes on a mission of vengeance.

Yeah, this is the one where oh what's his name? Explodes?

Robert Davey feeds his friend Felix to a shark and leaves a note saying he disagreed with something that aid him. And so James Bond goes to kill Robert Dovey.

Yeah, and Anthony's er explodes, right, I think that's how it goes goes maybe?

Yeah.

Anyway, Christopher nine was in a bunch of stuff. He pops up in Ghostbusters two playing a nitro d. He's in the hul Cogan films Suburban Commando from ninety one. He's in the nineteen ninety four Chuck Norris film hell Bound. He's in Species three from two thousand and four, and then goes on to be in the Prestige from two thousand and six. Just a bunch more all the way up through twenty nineteen.

He's perfect in this. He's got a creepy, malevolent, froggy smile. He just he looks like he's up to no good.

Yeah, dangerous youngster. They're very drugish.

He also just gives strong like cult leader. It's like you see him and it's like, get this guy a cult stat.

Yeah, all right. We also have the law present in this film, investigating manner matters that turn out to be Dracula related. We have Inspector Murray played by Michael cole So of nineteen thirty four through two thousand and five. This is our chief law officer investigating a stream of strange murders in London. He's presented as a more progressive and sympathetic policeman, but at the same time he's totally down to invoke draconian drug laws in order to weed out dangerous hippies.

Yeah, I'm gonna say no offense to Michael Coles. He does find. But this oddly shaggy and in some ways sympathetic detective character feels like it was meant for David Warner.

Oh well, yeah, David Warner would have been good. I mean, David what You could cast David Warner in anything in this film and he would have nailed it. As for Michael Coles, he would reprise this role in seventy three's The Satanic Rights of Dracula. So I guess the investigation continues. His other credits include nineteen sixty five's doctor who in the Dalaks all right, we basically as far as the cast goes, there are just a couple other people of note. These are other members of the youth group. Well it's not a youth group. That makes it sound like it's church affiliated. These are some more of the swing in Londoners the young people, the first of which is the character Gaynor, played by Marcia A. Hunt born nineteen forty six. She's an American model, singer, actor, and a later author and editor. She only acted in eleven films, but they include such titles as nineteen eighty two as the Cinder It's Like a psychic, sort of Scanner esque flick, nineteen eighty three's Never Say Never Again, a Bond film, Howling two, Your Sister is Aware a Wolf, which is obviously part of the ups and downs of the Howling franchise her office. Her bibliography includes an autobiography, a memoir, and the nineteen ninety novel Joy. Her discography includes three albums from the nineteen seventies, and she was also famously in a relationship with Mick Jagger, and the two had a daughter together.

Ah. She's one of the more friendly presences in the group of London hippies, though she tragically is eaten by Dracula, like several characters are.

Another doomed character that fits the same description for the most part is Carolyn Monroe's Laura Bellows. We've talked about Monroe on the show before, because yeah, she was a pin up model and actress who stole many a seventies film nerds heart, with such genre appearances as The Spy Who Loved Me seventy seven, Maniac in nineteen eighty, Slaughter High in eighty six, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad earlier in seventy three, Captain Crono's Vampire Hunter, Another Hammer Picture from seventy four, at the Earth's Core in seventy six, and also Star Crash in seventy eight. She also has a just slight cameo as a picture of Doctor Phib's wife in nineteen seventy one's The Abominable Doctor Fibes.

She is the main character in Star Crash, didn't she She's still a star so.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, she's right there, She's on the poster.

Yeah. She is also eaten by Dracula in this movie, and her character is is just goga for demons. Ever since there's like the moment the Johnny Alucard brings up, hey, what if we did a black mass, She's like, yes, yes, do it now, let's go.

It's true. Yeah, she's kind of presented as the Well, of course she was killed by Dracula because she was a bad hippie, so so yeah, what early victim here.

But I don't understand, like, why is she so into demons. There are several characters in this movie who have a history of like investigating the occult, so like it's an established interest of theirs. She seems like she's never thought of it until Johnny Alukhard brings it up. But the moment he's like, let's summon the Prince of darkness, she can't think of anything else. It's like this is all I want now.

Yeah, I mean, I guess it's you know, I guess we're already thinking about it more deeply than anyone involved in the film, I think. But you know, maybe she's supposed to be just sort of like the shallow enthusiast of the occult that doesn't realize that there are, you know, in the world of this film, real threats involved in trying to summon up the spirit of a slain Dracula creature from the past, that sort of thing. All right, we're gonna skip over the rest of the youth in this film and just get right to the music. The music is by Michael Vickers born nineteen forty I a member of the nineteen sixties band Manfred Mann. I'm not familiar with, but the scorer and soundtrack for this film is widely available, and I have to say it's a lot of fun. Most of the score tracks are very jazzy, lots of blaring like horn or saxophone or whatever is Dracula and Van helsing chase each other around. But he also gives us a wonderful Black Mass track titled Devil's Circle Music. That is you see it being played on screen. It is the soundtrack to the Black Mass that is conducted in the picture, and it itself is a beautiful, creepy cacophony of satanic sounds. So part of me wishes the whole score for this movie sounded like that, But on the other hand, I really like the cheesy content of this film, so I'm glad that we have the blaring jazz present as well, all right, with all that behind us, Joe, take us to nineteen seventy two.

All right, we'd be well, no, we don't start in nineteen seventy two.

Oh oh, well, that's right. We start in eighteen seventy two.

Right, that's right. I'll take you to eighteen seventy two. How about that. How about we start there? Okay, we begin with dead leaves blowing in the autumn wind. And I noticed I noticed in this opening sequence in some shots, Rob, I don't know if you saw this too. In some shots the trees are just packed with dense green foliage, and in other shots they have orange and yellow leaves and fewer of them, and then in a third kind of shot they're completely bare. I wonder why that is it. Could it be the different shots in this, like I don't know, minute long carriage Chase were shot at different months of the year. That seems unlikely, but I don't know. Maybe it's just different kind of trees or something. I was on guard for this because I saw, like at the the very first shot, orange leaves are blowing on the ground, but the trees in the background are fully green, and it reminded me of John Cars Halloween, which you may have never noticed this before, but it's like that. I think it was actually shot in the summer, even though it's supposed to take place in October in Illinois, so I think they had to like bring in bags of dead leaves to dress the you know, the sets.

Reminds me of the neighborhood that while we both live in. Occasionally they're film productions, and there was that one. I think this was like in the summer where they were filming something for Halloween, and they they decorated the whole streak for Halloween, like like movie level Halloween decorations, and it was it was pretty fun. Like sometimes film productions can you know, they can get in your way and then you can be a little grumpy about them disrupting your morning commute or whatever. But that that film shoot, God bless it.

Oh good lord. Yes, yeah, Halloween in July. Thank you, I'll take it. So, yeah, we get the leaves blowing. We see red calligraphy letters on the screen. This as a hammer production and it's that calligoriphy font that makes the word bathory look like bat Lord. A horse drawn carriage is racing along on a parkside pathway goes over a stone bridge under an archway of these dead tree limbs, and a narrator comes in. Narrator says, the year is eighteen seventy two, and the nightmare legend of Count Dracula extends its terror far beyond the mountains of Carpathia to the Victorian metropolis of London. Here in Hyde Park, the final confrontation between Lawrence van Helsing and his arch enemy, the demon vampire Dracula. Now, I told you I was going to come back to the name of van Helsing in this movie. You did hear that right? It is Lawrence van Helsing for some reason, I'm not sure what. This movie, and maybe at least one of the other Hammer Horror Draculas, calls this character Lawrence. Of course, in the novel, van Helsing's first name is Abraham. No offense to all of the wonderful Lawrences out there for what I'm about to say. But this name change is not great. A van Helsing, whose friends call him Larry, does not bring the same gravitas as Abraham. Hmm, yeah, yeah, So why the change? I don't know. Could it possibly have to do with intellectual property? That seems I don't know kind of.

I mean, that would be the main reason to change up the name of a particular character. And of course historically we would have seen movements like that before concerning the Dracula property.

Yeah, but I mean, but it's called Dracula, so it would have to be something specific to that one character, Like they could use the last name and the rest of the plot and Dracula, but not Abraham. I don't know. It's confusing. So anyway, the movie opens with the ending of this other tale. We see Dracula and Van Helsing already in the middle of fighting to the death on the roof of this carriage as it races through Hyde Park. They're sort of wrestling. Dracula is choking Van Helsing, until suddenly the horn that's holding the horses to the carriage snaps. The horses run off. The carriage veers off the path and crashes into a tree. Van Helsing is thrown aside into the grass, and Dracula, when we see him stagger out from behind the carriage, is impaled on the spoke of a carriage wheel, an accidental stake through the heart. Dracula and Van Helsing fight a little bit more wild drac has a wheel stuck to him, so it's just kind of poking out of him. But eventually Dracula is defeated. Van Helsing kind of shoves the stake into the heart further and then he does the classic undead turbo rot. So Dracula collapses into a pile of bones and then that turns into ash and dust. By the riverside, Van Helsing also collapses dead.

So at this point, the entire multifilm struggle between Professor van Helsing and Count Dracula ends in a vehicular accident, which I think would feel mighty underwhelming if this wered like the end. But this isn't the end, this is the beginning, so I guess we'll allow it. A freak accident takes both the demon vampire and his chief adversary, takes them both out of action.

But wait a second, who's this creep back here watching everything go on? There is a young man observing the scene. He'd been following the carriage on horseback. He comes galloping in wearing a top hat, and he's a little guy with a scuzzy mutton chop sideburn set and a toad like grin, and he produces a glass vial and scoops up some of Dracula's ashes after he turbo rots, Van Helsing's just laying there dying. He ignores Van Helsing. He also pockets Dracula's special ring. It looks like it's made of silver, but I don't think that would make sense for Dracula. So it's some kind of pale precious metal ring.

Yeah, maybe pewter or something. Maybe he can wear pewter.

I'm not sure Dracula's lead ring.

I would fit right, he doesn't have to worry about lead.

So we cut to a funeral scene after that, and it's all of Van Helsing's friends and family gathered in a churchyard where the Good Doctor's body is being committed to the earth. And it seems most of the mourners are variations on the Monopoly Man, shiny top hats, coats with tails, all that. It's mostly dudes at the funeral.

And we're not introduced to any of them. We don't know who from the novel Dracula actually showed up at the man's funeral, Like, I feel like it would be a little bit insulting if Jonathan Harker didn't show up at Van Helsing's funeral, right.

I mean, did they really know each other all that? Well, they just kind of got together for a work project one time.

Well yeah, the way they work friends right, So.

Yeah, okay, so oh another funny thing is the line we hear the priests say at Van Helsing's funeral. He's quoting the Bible, so we like come in and he's saying, man, that is born of woman hath but a short time to live and is full of misery. And I know that's the Bible, but man, is that really what people want to hear at a loved one's funeral. It's like, not only do we die soon, it's mostly bad until we get there.

Yeah, yeah, I don't. I don't want that RD at my funeral.

Oh but a quick side note related to recent Core episodes. You know, the next line after that in the Book of Job. This is from Job chapter fourteen. After the you know it's a short time to live, full of misery, the next line is he cometh forth like a flower and is cut down. He fleeth also as a shadow and continueth not anyway, So that funeral is going on. Meanwhile, the creepy guy who collected Dracula's ring and ashes. He shows up at the funeral. He digs a hole in the ground just outside the churchyard, pours Dracula's ashes into the hole, and then drives a steak, the same steak that killed Dracula, into the soil above the hole. And then a marvelous transition, we get jet wipe jet We like, look up to the sky and there's a jetplane wipe and the funky music comes on, don't damn gawow, and the jet comes down and we see the title Dracula nineteen seventy two A d very good, very good use of a jetplane.

Absolutely, it's like, bam, now it's modern times. Look at the jet plane. The music has shifted from old timey gothic horror movie to this is thoroughly modern, jazzy, funky number. And yeah, my only note here is that we're denied footage of Dracula flying first class. I mean, he's not actually supposed to be in that airplane. But you know, again, it's like you want. The movie seems to promise this idea of Dracula is in our world now, and it never quite gives us that.

I think they should have done a pong wipe, So it's wiped to a screen of people playing the atari, but it's not pong, it's an airplane. And then what are they going to use to show We got to get like a nineteen seventy two montage, right, show us some footage of what it means for things to be modern? What does that mean in this film's conception, primarily traffic, So we're just seeing like complex highway exchanges teaming with cars set to saxophone and whaling guitar solos.

Yeah, yeah, I guess that's all they really want to convey about the modern world. That it's busy, and you know that the world's fast, it's in a hurry. But meanwhile, Dracula is patient. Dracula is long lived and is crossing oceans of time to reach the year nineteen seventy two.

And then from here we cut straight to a party scene. Now, this is the scene where I think they were the movie was trying to pack in all of its modern debauchery into like one five to seven minute sequence.

That's right with But their hippies are not like all, is it not like we're dealing with a bunch of sort of grind hausey, like evil hippies or anything. These are all like, for the most part, likable, fun goofy kids. Again, I think most of them are at least in their mid twenties, but still goofy kids having a good time enjoying the musical stylings of Stone Ground.

Stone Ground that's the name of the band they are playing. Let's see how do so. The scene is like hippies versus more monopoly men, but monopoly men from nineteen seventy two instead of eighteen seventy two. This party is taking place at an elegantly decorated apartment or flat belonging to rich people, full of breakable antiques. There is a buffet table set up with champagne and ice buckets and a bunch of food. But I paused it. Almost all the food appears to be fruit. I guess they thought we wouldn't look too close, or maybe they just really like fruit. Also, several hippies are making out underneath the buffet table. The band Stone Ground is playing. In the living room. There are go go dancers on top of the piano and on the sofa table. Hippies are dancing, presumably doing drugs, though I don't think we see any drugs being done and getting up to sexual behavior, and all of the rich, posh people are scandalized.

I can't stress enough that stone Ground as a band looks like what might happen if you took the Muppet Show band and portrayed them as human beings. Yes, they're like a human Muppet Show band.

Yeah yeah, Or like Fraggles, like the Fragle band.

Yeah. Michael Wheldon wrote in his review quote, A party sequence with the American band stone Ground is a real low point. Oh come on, I would disagree, But then again, i'm you know, we I think he was writing this a little closer to the original release time. I would say that it's a goofy good time that also advances the plot somewhat introduces us to a key character, which we'll get to in just a second. I think you can say, well, perhaps there are some seventies bands that would have been better suited to this film than stone Ground. I wouldn't say I love the music, but they do appear to have been a real band and all, like they don't just exist in this film. South Valentino was the singer noted for his earlier work in the sixties group the bo Brummels. They did the song just a little and I think they had another hit, and various members of Stone Ground went on to other things.

One of the songs they play at this party is it's just very generic lyrical content. It's like, oh yeah, come on or something. But the other song is called Alligator Man, and all of the lyrics are about how like I'm just a by you man. You know you can find me and the by you because that's all I do. I swim in the water. I'm an alligator man. I think he says I come from an alligator clan, and I was just looking at the scene, like these are not alligator men, if anything, these are lamprey men.

Yeah. I mean that's it's kind of a credence vibe right where it's like, perhaps not authentic swamp music.

Oh I don't know, I go credence, they're out. They're alligatorman to me, John Fogerty, Yeah, come on, he's an alligator man.

The credence was great, But did they come from an actual swamp.

I don't know. Maybe I've never looked into it.

If they don't have a swamp thing origin story, then I'm gonna say it's it's it's a bit of an act, but it's a fun act. I always like, I like love Credence when I was younger.

I still love Credence. Wait, okay, but in the middle of this whole scene, we got to explain this. So the hippies are dancing, the band is playing, all the rich people are are horribly offended. And in the middle of the scene, hey, it's that same reptilian creep that scooped up Dracula's ashes one hundred years ago. If anybody's an alligator, man, it's him.

He.

You know, he's like got these creepy eyes. He's staring at everybody. Uh. And I don't know if he has like not aged since one hundred years ago, or if this is supposed to be a descendant of that other guy. Either way, it's the exact same dude. It looks exactly the same, except he is now. I don't know. He's dressed sort of for the era. He's wearing a frilly pirate shirt, a burgundy velvet suit, and a black, wide brimmed fedora. So cool.

I think he's supposed to be a descendant because Dracula later says something to him about his bloodline.

Ah, that would make sense.

So like there's been a long line of Dracula enthusiasts, some of whom never got to meet Dracula, which would be kind of a bummer, right. Yeah.

Yeah, they're just you know, bridging the gap between generations.

Yeah.

Oh, and also we learned that his name is Johnny Alucard Smooth.

Ah, we're not going to spoil We're not going to spoil it yet. We're not going to tell you what alo card means.

Oh what, We're not going to tell you what it is spelled backwards. This is their kingdom. Yeah, Johnny Nilbog here at the party. He's gazing out from under the brim of his fedora while everybody else has a good time. He doesn't look like he's having a good time. He's just sitting there watching with no ex expression. Of course, all of the fancy rich people are mortified. They're baffled about how all of these disgusting partygoers ended up in their flat. This old lady who's kind of a little bit Angela Lansbury ish, she's like, what you know to her son, She's like, why did you invite all of these monsters, and he says, I didn't they're not my friends. All I did was to invite the stone a Ground. But that just left me more confused. I'm like, why did he invite the stone Ground? He invited this band?

Well, because stone Ground is just a household name. Stone Ground appeals to audiences of all ages, the old, the young, the hip, the square. Everyone loves stone Ground. That's one of the film's early key messages.

I understand now, yes, Oh, but there's one thing in this party scene that I think does not make sense and did not work at all. It's the bit about timing how many minutes until the police arrive. So the guy who invited the stone Ground goes and calls the po to get all the hippies out of his apartment, and then the hippie the friends all start being like, oh, the fuzz will be here in four minutes. No, it'll be six minutes, it'll be three and a half minutes, eight minutes. And they're arguing with each other, and they explained that they have a running practice where I guess they party somewhere where they're unwanted until the minute before the police arrive, and then they leave and it's not really funny, and it doesn't really make sense. It sort of lacks very similitude, but the bit just keeps going on.

It's a rather different relationship between hippies and law enforcement in this film versus certainly reality. But also I'm reminded of the Living Dead of the Manchester Morgue, where you know, it's firmly established that the man hates hippies, that law enforcement just despises them, whereas in this film it's like, ah, they're fun loving. It's a fun loving competition, you know. It's like, oh, you got me today, hippies, we'll get you tomorrow. That sort of thing.

And in the spirit of that sort of teasingness, like when the police arrived to bust up the party, oh they discovered the hippies making out underneath the buffet table, and one of the hippies just says to the cop, peace man, and the cop smiles. But also there's a thing where when Johnny Alucard is about to leave the apartment, he takes the time to stop and torture the old lady about breaking her priceless antiques. Like he picks up this ceramic figurine and is tossing it hand to hand, and then just when she thinks, you know, he's setting it safely down on the table, he tips it over and it breaks on the floor.

Oh yeah, he's a chaotic youth. He doesn't care about anything.

But so they split from the party. They go to their favorite coffee shop except is it daytime?

Now?

I'm a little confused about the timeline. But they go to their favorite coffee shop, and the coffee shop is called cavern in this place? Is I wish I could go there?

Yeah? I kind of have to assume that what we see of the interiors as a set. But it's a great looking set. We got the like splashes of tile and all sorts of cool purple lighting. Like it just looks too cool to be a real space. But I could be wrong on that. And then they order up what at first I thought was like bowls of soup and coca colas. But I think this is supposed to be coffee and or tea plus coca colas.

I think there are coca colas in glass bottles. But yes, the souper bowls are coffee cups. I think. Okay, they're just very wide and shallow for some reason. Oh, and I made a note that cavern is right next to a store called Chelsea Mail m al E. I don't know, maybe that's clothing. I don't know. Anyway, the coffee ass the hippies sit in a secluded booth and Johnny Alucard talks about how everything's just boring. I'm sick of it all. It's all stale. We've got to find a new way to get our kicks. And he says, I want some thing new yet as old as time. And he's got an idea. They all want to hear what his idea is. He leans forward and he says, a date with the Devil, a bachanal with Beelzebub. So they think he's joking around at first, Oh, you're just Josh and Johnny Alucard a haha, Oija board spirit mediums that stuff's a bunch of funny nonsense. But Johnny Alucard is not joking. He's serious. He says, don't knock it unless you've tried it. And then Jessica, the most intelligent and level headed of the group, comments, well, they do say it's dangerous. But at the other side of the table, Carolyn Monroe as Laura is here like, yes, yes, devil, take me to the devil now. So everybody eventually agrees, last of all and reluctantly Jessica, but they're all in. They're going to go to an abandoned London church later tonight at midnight to summon Satan. I don't know. I guess that's just how you have fun.

This may come later, but I did like the way they set up, how various members of the friends group are going along with this, where I think Jessica's boyfriend is like this is you know, it's like, yeah, Johnny's enthusiastic about it, but you know what's gonna happen. We're gonna show up, somebody's gonna get out of guitar. I'm gonna have some food and some drinks. It's like it's just gonna be more or less like any other hang we do. It's just Johnny's gonna read some weird stuff beforehand.

Yes, he said there will. It'll just be beer, food, guitar and loving in the end. But before we get to the summoning of Satan, we see a few little there's some interludes. First of all, we see Johnny Alucard head home to his sweet flat, which his flat seems very cool. It's like well decorated. I don't know, it doesn't have that bachelor quality to it.

Yeah, yeah, I know what you mean. It feels like this is more space and it's in better shape than Johnny should have access to. He should have more of a like a little hovel with Dracula posters on the walls. Turns out the good guys are the ones with Dracula posters.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So he goes to his house and he opens up a velvet box and inside it's the ring, Yes, Dracula's ring, the one we saw the guy who looks exactly like Johnny take off of Dracula's corpse earlier on and the vial of ashes, so he's got him. We also follow Jessica home and this is where we learn that she is Jessica van Helsing and her grandfather who she lives with, is Professor Lorimer van Helsing also played by Peter Cushing, again a descendant of Larry from the prologue, and grandfather Van Helsing is an expert on the occult. He has consulted with the police before to solve cases of ritual cult murder, and he comes into office catches his granddaughter reading his book, which is called the Treatise on Black mass. He says, Jessica, this is not a subject to mess around with. These are scientific works. But she mocks it. She says, you know, you can buy that kind of book in any shop in soho quote. It's all kinky, you know, she says, it's hobgoblins, black magic, etc. So she thinks it's all nonsense, has no interest whatsoever in the occult, and in fact seems to think it's it's not even superficially interesting. She thinks that she can't bring her friends over to this place or to meet him because it would be interminably boring. But wait a minute, Jessica, don't you know that your friends are obsessed with summoning the devil? Like they just expressed this extreme interest in the occult, And here she is like, I can't My friends could never find out that you're an expert on the occult. It would be so embarrassing.

Yeah, Jessica is a bit of a brat, and I think intentional. So like he has to politely move her feet off of his desk when he comes in and finds her reading the Book of the Occult. But at the same time, it's that they do a great job letting us know that, yeah, he really cares about her, and she really cares about him. But there is this, you know, some awkward generational stuff where you know, the stuff Grandpa's into is just lame, and yeah, she's kind of blind to the fact that there is this strong connection between what's about to happen in her friend group and the kind of stuff that grandpa actually knows quite a bit about.

Yeah, he patiently explains that, you know, our family has a legacy of research into the occult, and she's just like, it's not my bag. Baby.

It's like the difference between a friend saying like, hey, I have this Doobie Brother's album and then your grandpa's saying, hey, I've got Doobie Brothers albums too. Like, it's not fair that grandpa is considered lame because he has this album and your friend has a pass because he just discovered it.

But that is how it works, no accounting for the social influences on taste formation anyway. Oh but also he's like, hey, what if I was to get to meet your friends you know, I wonder who these people you hang out with all the time, who are they? And she's like, Uh, you're never going to meet them because this place is boring and dusty and old, and you're an expert on the occult, so you will not meet them. But she tries to reassure him by saying she has never dropped acid, she is not shooting up, and she says she is not sleeping with anyone just yet, so he has no reason to worry. She is into nothing wrong. And then she goes to meet her friends at the deconsecrated church to raise the devil. Yep, so this black Mass. What can we describe about the scene? Well, first of all, there's a thing about the tombstone. On the outside, she and her boyfriend Bob are talking before they go into the church. They're waiting to meet everybody, and they stumble across the tombstone of her ancestor, Lawrence van Helsing, who died one hundred years ago to this day.

Yeah, which they initially think, oh, this is one of Johnny's jokes. This is not funny. They get a little disturbed over this.

It's one of Johnny's jokes. He had a fake tombstone made and put in this churchyard.

I don't know, you know, they're just they're they're trying to figure it out. The other thing I would say is is that this, this abandoned church is just is a great set. It's a great like Gothic setting for what is inevitably going to be the resurrection of Count Dracula.

That's right. So Johnny Alucard is there. He's wearing an all black robe. He has everybody sit in a circle and listen to music. He says, no fooling around, this is for real. And the tape he plays sounds kind of like the drum solo in Inegata Davida, which is a thumbs up for me. Yeah.

Yeah. It has this kind of like noisy, grimy quality to it, which I quite like. And again you can hear this track is included on the soundtrack and score along with those stone ground tracks if you need to listen to those.

That must provide an odd contrast. But he's really telling them to get into it. He says, dig the music, kids, let it flow into you. Give yourself up to the music. And this reminds me of Christian tracts that I have read genuinely espousing the idea that rock music will will allow a demon to possess your soul.

Yep, yep.

Johnny Alucard seems to agree with that point of view, and then he starts. He starts name and demons. You know, he says, I call upon Address the Grand Marquis of Hell. He says, Marquis, a provoker of discords, and upon ron Way, demon of forbidden knowledge, and upon Behemoth, the arch devil of black delights. I call upon as Modius, the Destroyer and Astroth, friend of all the great lords of Hades. I demand an audience with his Satanic majesty. And he goes on and on names like fifteen more demons, and ends with Count Dracula, which, even in the context of the movie, for some reason, it just kind of sounds funny in this list of I don't know, biblical or at least like apocryphal or hermetic kind of entities.

Maybe, But at the same time, I don't know. We've talked already on the show. I think in Listener Mail episodes about Marvel's Dracula and how in the Marvel Comics universe, Dracula will occasionally have interactions with the likes of doctor Doom, so you know, Draculas can can hang out with Doctor Doom on the moon. Then I feel like it's it's equally okay that his name is mentioned in the same prayer as these various other dark and powerful demon lords.

So he says all these demons, but then he calls the name of Jessica van helsing, she's right here in the room with us. She's here listening to the music. She's digging the music as instructed. And he says that the demons have chosen her, but she is afraid, so she says no, she's not going to join him up at the altar for whatever comes next. But somebody's ready, somebody wants to be to go to the altar, and it's Laura played by care Ellen Monroe. She's extremely jealous. She's like, no, me, me, me, me me, And so it looks like it's gonna be Laura instead for whatever this ritual will be. He so she goes up, lies down on the altar and Johnny Alukard cuts his hand, bleeds into a grail full of Dracula's ashes and then pours them out on her and it gets really thick and frothy, and this is disgusting. She's now covered in ashy blood. Everybody gets freaked out and runs away except for Johnny and Laura. And of course the ritual works it, you know, it resurrects Dracula from the earth where his ashes were buried one hundred years before. And then Dracula is shown shot from below, so we're looking up at him like he is the statue of liberty but a vampire, and he's surrounded by smoke and quite regal in his well, as Johnny said in his Satanic majesty, and.

I thought this is pretty effective. Like at this point, I'm really digging, like, oh yeah, this is Dracula, this is the real deal. You've summoned him, and like this is an incredibly dangerous situation for everybody involved.

But this is the part I mentioned earlier where he is right off the bat, extremely high handed with Johnny. Johnny says, master, I did it. I summoned you, and Dracula just kind of scowls at him and says it was my will and then holds out the ring for him to kiss.

Well, he's not going to suffer any even if this is like, you know, a bloodline of Toadies that are supposed to look after Dracula's interest and raise him from the grave. Like, he's not going to suffer a wizard trying to pull one over him here. He's going to establish right from the top that Dracula is the guy.

In charge, right. So he goes into the church, Laura is still hanging out there. He's like, I guess I'll drink her blood, and he does, and meanwhile Johnny is looking on biting his knuckle like I wish that was me. And at first I thought he was thinking like, oh, I wish that was me drinking her blood, but then I realized, no, I think he's like, I wish that was me getting my blood drank.

Because that's what he ultimately wants. He wants the kiss of cursed immortality.

So the next day, Laura's body is found by kids playing in a construction area. There's sort of the kids from the Spirit of Dark and Lonely Waters commercial.

Yeah, just sort of wild, unparented seventies children running around finding dead bodies in the in the rubble. I mean, this is just how it went. I was born in seventies as well.

Yeah, let's go climb on that rebar. The police show up. They open a murder investigation and it is led by Inspector Murray. This is the detective we talked about earlier. Inspector Murray in turn consults with Laura Mr van Helsing. I think they have a pre existing relationship because Van Helsing knows all about weird occult murders, and the detective then reveals that the murder is connected to his granddaughter Jessica, because Laura was part of her friend group.

They do acknowledge at one point, or Inspector Murray does talking with somebody else, I think one of the other their police investigators. He's like, well, you know, here in the UK, we don't really have cult murders like they do in America. You know, they're not They're not as complicated as that and as heavy. We we have some cult murders, but it's you know, it's it's it's more British here.

So there is a an investigation portion of the movie in the middle here that had one scene that had Rachel and me rolling. It was the the Alu card scene where man, they really they don't skip over anything. They let you see the whole thing.

Come together, spoil it for us, Joe, tell everybody what Alo card means well.

So that you see, like Peter Cushing there with a card and he has written Dracula out on this piece of paper, and then he's drawing lines from the letters in Alu card to the letters in Dracula and they all cross over. And he's like, it's it's Dracula spelt backwards.

The the Dracula cipher right or Alo card cipher, as if he just solved like a really complex puzzle here, uh, when it's just so obvious in the page. But again, it just shows you how great Peter Cushing is. Such a stupid scene, but he sells it. He he patiently brings dignity to the scene.

He draws. He doesn't just like write out Alu card and then look at he like draws all the lines. He does every letter.

You know, he's checking his work. And I guess we have to remember at this point in in Hammer canon anyway, nobody had had solved the Dracula cipher yet they didn't know what this meant, and so we had to watch him do it in real time.

That's true. It's like one of those math conjectures you know, remains unproven.

Mm hmm. But this is this is also good parenting slash grand parenting tip uh that we're seeing here. Find out who your your your your your child or your grandchild's friends are. Write their names on a sheet of paper and just check and see if any of their first or last name happens to be Dracula spelled backwards.

I just knew I shouldn't have let my child play with eoj nif.

Ok.

Sorry, I don't have any paper out, Joe. I can't fact check that one to make sure that's okay.

Well, then you must be one of the idiots infurio. Okay, So what happens to that? So maybe I'm gonna skip more lightly over some of the plot points that follow, but one sequence is Dracula. He really wants to eat Jessica van Helsing. Actually, I think he wants to turn her into a vampire right to really just fully defile the name of Van Helsing. He wants to not just kill the end of the van Helsing line, but make her a servant of the devil.

That's right, that's his evil plot for revenge here.

So the way they're going to make that happen is Johnny Alucard. Does he invite Jessica van Helsing to go to the Jazz Spectacular with him?

Yeah, He's like, I got tickets to the Jazz Spectacular, want to come? And she's like, uh no, no, no, thank you of doing something else. And then Gaynor's like, hey, I'm looking to go to a concert.

What's he gonna do? Well, he figures out I can at least feed Gayner to Dracula.

Yeah, but this this doesn't go over well with Dracula because Dracula, rightfully so is like, you, this is not what I charged you with. We have a specific plan for vengeance here. I will drink her blood and kill her, but you need to bring me the descendant of Van Helsing. And then but Johnny Alickhart is like, well, you haven't given me any powers, and he basically does kind of like a there's like a labor standoff, yes here in the film, and Dracula caves. He's like, all right, I'll give you the powers.

So he bites him, turns Johnny Olichard into a vampire. And then Johnny ali Cart actually before he gets on with the business of you know, of getting Jessica van Helsing. He just goes out and gets a snack for and he like finds a lady in a laundromat and eats her.

Yep, yep, just starts committing random vampire murders.

But at some point Jessica's boyfriend, Bob, he comes to get her at her house. Now she's been warned about things at this point by her her grandfather Van Helsing, but Bob comes and says I think he says, oh, you know, your grandfather and the police are at the cavern. They're interviewing everybody and you need to come there now. Was that the story? I think it was.

I believe so.

Yes, And in the scene he strangely has a ben Dan tied around his neck. Yep, did you see this one coming?

Yeah, yep.

So he does take her to the cavern the coffee shop, but it's not the uh, it's not the good guys, it's the bad guys.

That's right. It's a game of cat and mouse here between the Van Helsings and House Dracula.

So eventually Jessica is taken to the deconsecrated church I think it's Saint Bartholf's and Dracula hip tizes her but doesn't vamp her yet. I think he's waiting for like the big midnight ritual or something. In the meantime, we get van Helsing on the case. He's trying to he's trying to find out how to rescue his granddaughter, and he ends up going to Johnny Alukard's house where they have a battle. It is Van Helsing versus a vampire, not Dracula yet, but the vamp, the sort of young vamp. And I thought this was a good battle. I like this scene.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, to be fair, this is the first vampire that this Van Helsing has ever battled. Yeah. And they do a good job, yeah, of making it a little a little unexpected, Like, for instance, earlier in the film, there's a little foreshadowing where they remind us that there's an often ignored bit of vampire lore that says that moving water or moving fresh water. I think they're running water film clear, running running water, will you know, destabilize them or slay them or something. So I wonder if that'll come into play here.

Yes, yes, I think he says that at the police station or something. He's listing all of the things that will harmer won't harm a vampire. Some of it's just superstition, but yeah, clear running water and a cross in a bible that'll do it. So there's a great move he has here where Johnny ali Card like the sun is rising in the window and he's trapped. He's got to get back to his coffin so he can rest during the daylight. But then Peter Cushing throws a bible into his coffin. He's like, oh got.

You now, Oh yeah, sleep on that. And this is like a full size one too. It's not one of those little pocket ones that you know, you could just maybe like sleep around, but no, no, there's no sleeping in that coffin without laying on that bible.

It's ruined, right, that's a thunk bible. So they battle, but eventually Johnny Alucard falls into the shower. The water starts running and this destroys him. Like the water's running over him and he's screaming. He's like, sturn it off, turn it off, and Van Helsing's like, where is Jessic? But he won't say. He's just getting obliterated by water?

Yeah? Is it the best vampire death in cinematic history. No, is it at least inventive? Does it give us something a little bit new? Then? Yes? I think so.

Yeah.

I kind of like this one. It seems actually like plausible from a folklore standpoint, that sounds like something that could really be believed to harm a vampire in some scenario. And yeah, I don't know, it was different. I liked it.

Yeah, I guess. There is a bathtub scene in The Lost Boys. There's something but that was like a bathtub full of holy water.

I think, ah, okay, I've forgotten about that.

If memory serves also.

Lost Boys came later, yeah, oh yeah, yeah, much later. But eventually Laura Mr Van Helsing does go to the church to confront Dracula, and there is a great trap setting scene. He digs a pit outside the church and he fills it full of wooden steaks. He takes his trusty silver dagger with him, which he has showed off several times before, and there is a showdown, a final battle in the church. And there were a couple of parts here that I thought were actually kind of scary. I don't usually expect to find anything all that frightening in a hammer horror movie, but like the part where Dracula is chasing Van Helsing up the spiral staircase into the tower I thought was quite menacing.

Yeah, because really throughout the film they do a great job of establishing Dracula as such a threat, and suddenly in that stairwell, it's like everything is so claustrophobic, and there's this feeling of just being in an enclosed space with something that is just beyond even a vicious animal, just pure bloodthirsty hunger.

Yeah, and so they have a showdown. There's kind of a fake out here. Van Helsing stabs Dracula with his silver dagger, but Dracula is aided by the hypnotized Jessica van Helsing. She comes up and pulls the dagger out of him, and her grandpa is like, no, Jessica.

This one caught me up in the moment, you know, you know the movie's not going to end like that. This movie's only ending way. But getting caught up in just the sort of the spirit of the film, I was like, oh man, this is bad news.

But of course we saw him dig that trap earlier, right, so the trap comes back. In the end, he throws holy water. Van Helsing throws holy water on Dracula that kind of burns him yow, and he falls into the pit. And then to really drive it home, Van Helsing like grabs a shovel and like shoves Dracula down onto the wooden stakes with the shovel, and this breaks the spell over Jessica. They're all right, and I guess some of her friends are still alive or boyfriend's dead. But I don't know. If you with the hippie group, they're still kicking around.

Yeah, I don't know if they're gonna hang out much anymore, but yeah, some survive. I will say, in this movie, you had two different scenes with the melting vampire, so you end up melting the same vampire twice in the same picture. They at least made sure to have the second vampire death look even better than the first. I have to say that this one looked really good and gnarly, and I liked it quite a bit.

Agree. So that's all I got for Dracula AD nineteen seventy two. I enjoyed this one. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna say it's the best Dracula movie I've ever seen, But if you're looking for those early seventies vibes, and you want some Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing in there too, It's it's perfect.

Yeah. I'm not going to recommend Dracula AD nineteen seventy two to everyone, but if the title Dracula AD nineteen seventy two stirs something inside you, then yes, you must see this film, and I encourage you to do so.

It's way better than Land of the Minotaur.

Yes, yes, I would agree, but the score for Land of the Minotar was better though I don't know.

Yeah, but Land of the Minotaur didn't have Stone Ground.

That's right, if they'd only had the musical stylings of Stone Ground. All right, we're gonna gohead and close this one out. But as always we remind you that we're primarily a science podcast, real science, not the Van Helsing branch of science, with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns to just talk about a weird movie here on Weird House Cinema. If you want a full list of the movies we've discussed over the years on Weird House Cinema, head on over to Letterbox dot com. It's l E T T E R b o x D dot com. Our username there is weird House, and we have a list and you can see all the films we've talked about. You can go back through the archives there and see, well, what other Dracula movies have they watched? I guess kind of sort of two or three other Dracula films.

Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Jjposway. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest to topic for the future, or just to say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or ever you listen to your favorite shows.

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