Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972)

★ 5.9 1h 36m IMDb

Horror

Set in London in the early 1970's, supposedly for teen thrills, Johnny organises a black magic ceremony in a desolate churchyard. The culmination of the ritual, however, is the rejuvenation of Dracula from shrivelled remains. Johnny, Dracula' s disciple, lures victims to the deserted graveyard for his master's pleasure and one of the victims delivered is Jessica Van Helsing. Descended from the Van Helsing line of vampire hunters her grandfather, equipped with all the devices to snare and destroy the Count, confronts his arch enemy in the age-old battle between good and evil.

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Cast

Christopher Lee as Count Dracula Died 2015 · Westminster, London, England, UK Christopher Lee (May 5, 1922 – June 7, 2015) was an English actor and musician. Lee initially portrayed villains and became famous for his role as Count Dracula in a string of Hammer Horror films. Oth...

Peter Cushing as Professor Van Helsing Died 1994 · Kenley, Surrey, England, UK Peter Wilton Cushing, OBE (26 May 1913 – 11 August 1994) was an English actor, known for his many appearances in Hammer Films, in which he played Baron Frankenstein and Dr. Van Helsing, amongst many o...

Stephanie Beacham as Jessica Van Helsing Age 79 · Barnet, England, UK Stephanie Beacham is an English television, radio, film and theatre actress. She is known for her television roles in the BBC drama Tenko, the ITV drama Connie, and for playing Sable Colby in the ABC...

Christopher Neame as Johnny Alucard Age 78 · London, England From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Christopher Neame (born 12 September 1947, London) is an English actor. His film credits include appearances in the Hammer Horror film Dracula AD 1972 (1972), t...

Michael Coles as Inspector Died 2005 · London, England, UK

Marsha Hunt as Gaynor Age 80 · Philadelphia, Pennsylvania From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Marsha Hunt (born April 15, 1946) is an American actress, novelist, singer and former model, who has lived mostly in Britain and Ireland. She achieved national f...

Director Alan Gibson

Cast Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Stephanie Beacham, Christopher Neame, Michael Coles, Marsha Hunt, Caroline Munro, Janet Key, William Ellis, Pip Miller

talisencrw 8/10 Sep 28, 2016

Yes, I know I'm giving this WAY TOO MANY marks, but, hey, I love all of the clashes between Sir Christopher Lee's 'Count Dracula' and Sir Peter Cushing's 'Van Helsing' (perhaps the greatest characterizations of those two characters, over a series of films, in cinema), and the then-contemporary (now almost 45 years ago!) update certainly is intriguing. So sue me.

John Chard 4/10 Sep 03, 2017

A misjudged mess.

Good grief! Hammer Horror Films were very much in a flux come 1972, so in a bold (yet ultimately ill conceived) attempt to move with the times and grasp a new audience, they turned to old faithful to resurrect their hopes - Count Dracula. Pic starts with an exciting prologue in 1872, where we see Dracula (Christopher Lee) and Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) battling to the death. We witness Drac's ashes buried near to the grave of Helsing, and then it's fast forward to 1972...

It must have seemed like a good idea at the time - letting loose one of the most iconic monsters in movie history in contemporary London - but it never works, lacking horror vibrancy and very much coming off as a pastiche of former glory. A rather excellent resurrection section of film aside, pic is just too quirky and kitsch for its own good, more laughable than anything remotely scary.

Other major problems hurt the possibility of enjoying it on some sort of parodic level. Dracula never actually does much, confined to a small location (again!), so not really tearing up contemporary London as it happens, while the 1972 "youths" who form the core of the narrative are actually out of date themselves! Something further compounded by the quite dreadful musical score, which should have been confined in a locked safe a decade earlier. Some of the more notable Hammer touches try to battle there way through the murk, but it's a losing battle, the company's visual identity lost amongst a daft script and cartoonish direction.

It has fans, and viewing it now some decades later one can at least embrace it with a modicum of endearment, but it's a poor pic and signals the start of a sad era for a great production company. 4/10