Day 8 of 31 Days of Vampire Movies takes us back to the Swinging 60’s, only 2 years too late to actually be a part of the zeitgeist. Tonight we’re going back to 1972. Specifically, Dracula 1972 A.D.
It’s another Hammer outing, and the wheels were really getting ready to fall off the wagon here. Don’t get me wrong, I adore this movie. It’s cheesy in all the best ways, has a Black Mass scene worthy of the name, a Mod sensibility that’s only a bit out of date, and yes, Christopher Lee returns as Dracula.
He had already been in several other Hammer Dracula flicks by then, but you could tell the shine had started to wear off the role for him. He was famously vocal about disliking dragging Dracula into the modern times, as this movie tried to do. You could tell it was written by scene outsiders, as it treats its young cast members and their characters as almost alien creatures, their values and ways inscrutable to its more senior cast. Peter Cushing returns as a Van Helsing descendant, and plays the part with a charming, baffled granddad sort of demeanor that’s quite endearing. He doesn’t dislike the teens his granddaughter hangs out with, he just doesn’t jive with the modern times, man.
Dracula himself seems weirdly detached from the whole affair. He’s off doing his own thing, pursuing revenge against the Van Helsing family, but doesn’t really interact with the modern scene or engage with any of its conceits. There’s a stand-in character for that, Johnny Alucard (I know, I know) an acolyte of his from the Victorian era who’s bided his time until the right moment to bring Dracula back from the dead.
The Swinging 60’s scene dressing feels very dated even for the time the movie was released. It takes place in 1972, and the decade of love and freedom was already moving to the back of people’s minds as they marched into the more dour and cynical 70s. It does give a certain tragic edge to the teens, portrayed as a generation lost in itself, left behind by the future but too different to be part of the stolid, stiff upper-lip generation before.
There’s a lot to enjoy here, but to say its one of the better Hammer Dracula movies would be a lie. They tried something new, and swung for the fences while they did it, but ultimately this one ended up lost in the weeds rather than a home run. But I do recommend giving it a watch. Like I said, the Black Mass scene is batshit insane in all the best ways, over the top and cheesy but still spooky enough to be enjoyable.