Dracula: Prince of Darkness (Terence Fisher, 1966)

If this third film in Hammer's Dracula franchise hadn't starred Christopher Lee, it would be a well-mounted but unremarkable no-frills vampire suspenser. I use the term 'starred' carefully, because it depends on his star charisma to make us overlook the fact that he's in it for all of about nine minutes and never utters a single word. It's a decent movie in it's own right, but it's Lee that gives it a kick – not a bad feat for a villain who last time we saw him had the physical consistency of Nestle's Quik (1958's Horror of Dracula saw the Count dusted by daybreak).

A group of travelers is warned away from Carlsbad and the castle there but go anyway. The survivors flee to the safety of a monastery. Dracula pursues. Plotwise and storywise, it's that basic. .The traveling foursome – couple Charles and Diana, Charles' brother Alan, and Alan's wife Helen - monopolize the film's runtime, and they are pleasant enough (barring Helen, an unceasing scold and killjoy) but bland as the script requires nothing more of them than to be vampire bait.

Early on they meet Father Sandor, our substitute for a Van Helsing type. Over multiple viewings I'm beginning to have a problem with Sandor: first he is scolding the locals for being overly cautious and superstitious about vampires, Dracula having been defeated ten years earlier (and disregarding the thriving vampire community he left in his wake, per Brides of Dracula – really, do not look to Hammer for any kind of continuity), so he wins audience sympathy for being both learned and holding a modern contempt for superstition...then once the menace is unveiled Sandor takes up their methods without a hint of irony. He presents himself as a man of the world, weary and crass as a shock tactic, yet dignified in speech. Played with gravitas by Andrew Keir, Sandor carves out a presence distinct enough from Cushing's Van Helsing that he could have well continued for further sequels...though he's beginning to wear on me a little. When he warns the wedded couple to beware the castle, he neglects to offer any reason why they should, and then rescues them later (those that survived the night) with an I-told-you-so. He's a 'designated hero', Sandor is: we're fully expected to admire him simply because he is the script's answer to the villain, and never mind that he comes across at times as a sanctimonious hypocrite. It's s not that he's unlikeable, actually he's quite warm-hearted beneath a thin gruff veil. The problem is that he's not credibly likeable...he's a little too good to be true.

More intriguing are a couple of minor villains, Klove (Phillip Latham) and Ludwig (Thorley Walters). Klove is an invention of Hammer's, an all-around manservant at Castle Dracula, a dusty old wreck faithful long after the Count has been vanquished. Ludwig is a crafty, flighty stand-in for Renfield, a mental case staying at the monastery. Thorley Walters is one of those great character actors that you instantly know (and love) from countless other films without ever quite being able to recall what they were, and he's most welcome here.

Unusually for a third film in a series, Prince of Darkness doesn't cut straight to the horror. Instead we're reminded just what a threat Dracula is via a flashback prologue (James Bernard's Dracula theme playing a vital role). It's that reminder, and Lee's unquestionable presence lying in wait, that powers the entire first half of the movie. We know the danger but our happy travelers do not, setting Hitchcock's proverbial bomb under the table of oblivious diners for fully half the film's running length of mounting suspense. Director Terrence Fisher guides the film with a a sure hand, taking his time. The careful build has a hell of a payoff, too, with Dracula's resurrection one of the nastiest bits of grue in the series and an especially ghastly death. From that point on there's no let-up in pace nor time for the characters to rest, down to one of the best of the Count's countless demises.

Continuing the aesthetic from Horror of Dracula, D:POD eschews the standard Gothic scenery – the cobwebs, the forbidding ruins, the German Expressionist shadows, thankfully no rubber bats, and instead gives us rich colors subtly used. There are a lot more deep reds employed this time, some in subtly gel-lit sets, while the rest of the screen often is splashed with color in the set décor.

 

Like Brides of Dracula, there is no subtext and no overt sexuality aside fro that inherent in Lee himself as Dracula. He functions as Bruce the shark from jaws, without pretense to anything other than raw hunger. Interestingly, we never see him feed this time out, but we do get our first screen treatment of the Count slicing his own bare chest for his intended to drink from. If POD brings little new to the table, we do get that nuance to the vampiric treatment of sexuality.

Ultimately the movie is a Miller Lite – tastes great, less filling. I think it's more deft than some of the later sequels, but at the same time less interesting...and it pales beside Brides of Dracula for involving story and characters. It's the shallower treatment of the characters that hurts the film a little, though there's also something to be said for the limited role Dracula plays in it. It must be remembered that in both Horror of Dracula and Stoker's novel our villain hardly puts in much of an appearance nor has has much to say once the set-up is through. Having been in development well before Lee signed , the script went through a number of revisions that could have seen it filmed as a stand-alone vampire film outside the franchise. This accounts for the slow build, as a new vampire would have needed to build its world and villain rather than get right down to business. Lee liked to claim that the dialog was so dreadful he refused to speak his lines (which begs the question of the godawful lines he uttered in Drink the Blood of Dracula), but like any good actor Lee was known to dramatize his bio a bit. Attested to by everyone else involved, there was never a script draft for POD that included lines for the Count.