THE PREQUELS AND THE SEQUELS OF YOUR CHOICE!

A VERY POPULAR POST and question over at the FACEBOOK PCASUK FAN PAGE today, that really is a #THROWBACK THURSDAY idea! Lots of interesting suggestions, even some people requesting not just a one off sequel, but PREQUELS and whole series of films! Below is the text that has accompanied the post on the page. Please feel free to click the blue link and join in with your suggestions 😉

#ThrowbackThursday! IT SEEMS THESE DAYS, that almost every other film that appears in the cinema today is either a sequel or a prequel, of an already existing successful box office film. If we had the power to revisit the times, when both Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee were still with us, and a magic wand, to indulge our tastes, which film that Lee and Cushing appeared in, would you command a SEQUEL go into production? Here is a list of the films that, you could choose from 😉 One choice, your choice 😉 - Marcus

BELOW: THE FANTASY FILMS OF PETER CUSHING AND CHRISTOPHER LEE, for your consideration!

The Curse Of Frankenstein, Dracula/Horror Of Dracula, The Mummy, The Hound Of The Baskervilles, The Gorgon, Dr. Terrors House Of Horrors, She, The Skull, Night Of The Big Heat, Scream & Scream Again, I Monster, The House That Dripped Blood, Dracula AD 1972, The Creeping Flesh, The Satanic Rites Of Dracula, Horror Express, Nothing But The Night, Arabian Adventure, House Of The Long Shadows

THE 22 FILMS OF PETER CUSHING AND CHRISTOPHER LEE: covers in detail all of the connected films in a SEVEN PART series with extensive photographs and images! PART ONE HERE! 

ABOVE: THE ONES THAT GOT AWAY, and in some cases, didn't even get past the 'nice idea at the time' Some surprises and some would have the potential to have maybe changed the direction of Cushing's and others careers! MARK IVESON's excellent feature is supplemented with several 'fake' blu ray cases and art work cover designs, that sometimes makes, the loss very frustrating, for sure! CLICK HERE! 

REVIEWED DRACULA AD 1972 : WARNER BROTHERS REMASTERED BLU RAY : GIFS AND SCREEN CAPS!

HERE IS A PETER CUSHING FILM, that has probably more column inches and photographs on all our PCASUK sites, than any other Cushing film. This is a weird situation, when you consider, that along with it's sequel,  HAMMER FILMS 'THE SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA' no other Cushing / Hammer film, causes a more wider divide in opinions among fans, than this one does! I think 'DRACULA AD 1972' as we have already explored in our previous Warner Brothers review of 'SATANIC' was a brave attempt by Hammer studios, to take one of their biggest box office draws, in another direction.

ACTING ALMOST as a reboot, to catch a new audience of teenagers, who might be more atrracted to a Prince of Darkness, who treads his deadly and terrifying path, among the 'fashion conscious and trendy dudes' of the psychedelic seventies, hot pants, flares, pot and glam-rock to boot! Sadly, this was one direction that left many hardcore fans out in the cold. 'AD 72' sadly isolated, what was left of the audiences who had attended all previous five Christopher Lee Dracula movies. But Hammer CEO Michael Carreras saw that the tried and tested concept could not last much longer, even though the previous outing of 'SCARS OF DRACULA' had grossed sizable takings, for both Hammer and Lee, when released with a reboot of the Hammer's other box office winner with 'The Horror of Frankenstein'. It was time for change. 

WHAT SCRIPT WRITER DON HOUGHTON, delivered and director Alan Gibson produced with both 'AD 1972' and 'SATANIC' were both pretty much on the mark, for what was needed for that change of direction. The fact that Robert Quarry had starred in AIP's 'COUNT YORGA, VAMPIRE' a TWO YEARS previous, and coined an interesting box office return, must have also influenced their choices. And so, Warner Brothers commisioned both AD and SATANIC, from Hammer films. The problem was, as was the habit with Hammer at this time, BOTH films arrived a little late. By 1972, fashion, tastes and music had moved on, for what is offered as 'trend' in both films.  the target audience of the past DRACULA features, would never have the tastes or tolence for such concepts as long hair, 'free love', flapping flares and psycho-colours, bright enough to burn the sensitive eyes of any dark dwelling vampire!

FOR DECADES, both 'AD 1972' and 'SATANIC' have been viewed, or rather not seen as worthy of being included in the 'fan love' list, of Hammer's Dracula rota. But just like fickle way of clothing and music fashion, what is out today, often returns from the 'dead as a doe-doe state', to be greeted and revisted with either the welcome of a long lost friend or, as in this case, maybe a view that sees, if the well loved Dracula features are from an era and time long past, so are 'AD 1972' and 'SATANIC'. They are ALL from the box office trends, of another time? The fans of vampire films today are much more flexiable, with vampire television series and movies, that actually rely on the concept of bringing 'the vampire' along with the Prince of Darkness into penthouse dwellings, rather than castles and gothic crypts. So, you can see why BOTH films are now finally getting their time,  and it has taken the Warner Brothers REMASTERING of the films, to finally SEE what the audiences saw on the big screen back in the day. . . .  

THE SYNOPSIS: As mention at teh beginning of this review, DRACULA AD 1972, has been covered in several features, galleries and reviews over teh years on this site. But for those who have never read the features or seen the film, here is a brief synopsis, WITH some spoliers :

IN 1872, COUNT DRACULA, (Christopher Lee) and his nemesis Lawrence Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) battle on the top of a runaway coach. The carriage crashes and Dracula is partly impaled by one of the wheels. In the struggle, Van Helsing manages to fully push the wheel into the vampire's chest, staking him. This done, Van Helsing collapses and dies from his own wounds. At that moment, a follower of Dracula (Christopher Neame) arrives, collects Dracula's remains and, a few days later, buries them near Van Helsing's grave at St Bartolph's Church. A century later, a new generation of Britons appear who move the tale along: in this case, a group of young hippies that includes Jessica Van Helsing (Stephanie Beacham), granddaughter of Lorrimer Van Helsing (Peter Cushing), an occult expert and descendant of Dracula's old nemesis, and Johnny Alucard (Christopher Neame), who closely resembles the disciple of Dracula seen in 1872. Alucard persuades Jessica and the others to attend a black magic ceremony in the now abandoned, deconsecrated St. Bartolph's, where he performs a bloody ritual involving one of their group, Laura Bellows (Caroline Munro). Jessica and the others flee in horror, after which Dracula is resurrected and kills Laura. 

Laura's body is discovered, drained of blood, and a police investigation begins, headed by Inspector Murray (Michael Coles). Murray suspects an occult element and interviews Lorrimer Van Helsing, who is shocked to learn the details of Laura’s death. He realises that Johnny Alucard (whose name is Dracula written backwards) is a disciple of Dracula, and that the Count must have returned. In the meantime, Alucard brings another of Jessica’s friends, Gaynor Keating (Marsha Hunt), to St. Bartolph's, where she is killed by Dracula and Alucard willingly has himself turned into a vampire. The vampiric Alucard kills a passerby and lures Jessica’s boyfriend, Bob (Philip Miller), to a café they frequent, where he turns him into a vampire as well. While Lorrimer is out, Bob goes to the Van Helsing house and persuades Jessica to come to the café, where he and Alucard capture her and take her to Dracula.

AIDED BY ONE OF JESSICA'S FRIENDS, Lorrimer tracks Alucard to his flat and battles him. Alucard accidentally kills himself with the running water in the bathroom shower. At St. Bartolph's, Lorrimer finds Bob's dead body, slain by sunlight before he could reach his resting place, and Jessica in a trance, with Dracula planning to take his revenge on the Van Helsing family by turning her into a vampire. Lorrimer sets a trap for Dracula by placing a pit of stakes underneath the graveyard and waits for him to return at nightfall. The two have a struggle in which Lorrimer attempts to kill Dracula with a silver knife, but the knife is pulled out by Jessica, still under Dracula’s command. As the pair go outside, Lorrimer throws holy water at Dracula, which burns his hands and causes him to fall into the pit of stakes that Van Helsing had previously prepared. Realising Dracula is still barely alive, Lorrimer uses a shovel to push Dracula into the stakes even further. Dracula dies, his body crumbling into ashes, and his spell over Jessica is broken. As Jessica embraces her grandfather, the title "Rest in Final Peace" is shown.

SO HOW DOES THE REMASTERED BLU RAY LOOK?
CONSIDERING DRACULA AD 1972, is now almost 47 years old, the film technically has never looked better! Since 2005, Warner has had a quite good quality region free DVD on the market, a big step up from a VHS version. It is THIS dvd that has fed the fans of the film for over the last 15 years. Then, a few years ago a German Blu-ray based on the same transfer created for the 2005 DVD was released in multiple regions. The team at the Warner Archive Collection actually reviewed that transfer and rejected it as unusable to use in this blu ray transfer. Thankfully, a 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray was produced from a NEW 2K scan by Warner's MPI facility, of a recently manufactured interpositive. Amazingly what we have for the DRACULA AD 1972 blu ray release are images that are indeed comparable to FRANKENSTEIN MUST BE DESTROYED, 'Dracula Has Risen From The Grave', 'Taste The Blood Of Dracula' and 'The Mummy' in the previously released Hammer Horror Classics collection Warner Brothers release. The colour correcting for this release was achieve  by using the Ektrachrome publicity transparencies as a reference. All age-related damage has been repaired . . .  by hand, frame by frame, taking out what must have been thousnads of dust, scratch and dirt frames, over the films 96 minute duration. All details, blacks and densities are all quite defined and superior to anything we would have seen of this film previously, and the film's grain pattern has been finely rendered. The compression at Warner's Archive Collection is customarily presented at a high rate of just under 35 Mbps, which completes the film's 1080p resurrection. DRACULA AD 1972 mono soundtrack has been taken from the magnetic master and encoded in lossless DTS-HD MA 2.0. Word has it that the soundtrack was in an impressive shape and thankfully, required minimal cleanup. The dialogue is clearly rendered, the basic sound effects too. Again, on this blu ray, I heard some subtle sound effects, I had not heard before! Both actual DRACULA death scenes now carry detail and subtleties you may not have been able to see before on the dvd's. 

SO TO WRAP, the remastering is way beyond what many expected for DRACULA AD 1972. What has been for sometime the least loved of the Hammer Dracula saga, shows up in very grand style, presenting what it has always been ..  Something different, stepping out beyond what was respected but had become predictable, embellished by it's two outstanding actors, to push the drama and action to a new level, for a new audience. Today, the thrill is still there, and is now wonderfully remastered, presented in such quite superb picture quality, spookily it offers the chance of again for a NEW audience to see and experience, what has been for sometime.... such fab frightening fun! 

IT'S NEVER LOOKED BETTER!  ORDER YOUR COPY : HERE!

NEWS: THE SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA AND DRACULA AD 1972 COME TO BLU RAY REMASTERS AT LAST! WARNER BROTHERS ARCHIVE

EXCLUSIVE NEWS: WARNER BROS ARCHIVE have announced that they will be releasing BOTH DRACULA AD 1972 AND THE SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA, as REMASTERED BLU RAY BOTH IN OCTOBER 2018! Both promise to be GREAT treats!

DRACULA D 1972 SPECIFICATIONS:
NEW 2018 1080p HD remaster! Running Time 96:00 Subtitles English SDH
Sound DTS HD-Master Audio 2.0 - English Aspect Ratio 1.78:1, 16 X 9 WIDESCREEN COLOR. Disc Configuration BD 50. RELEASE DATE: OCTOBER 2018

THE SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA SPECIFICATIONS : NEW 2018 1080p HD remaster! Running Time 88:00 Subtitles English SDH Sound DTS HD-Master Audio 2.0 - English Aspect Ratio 1.78:1, 16 X 9 WIDESCREEN COLOR Disc Configuration BD 25 Release date: October 2018

THE CLASSIC HAMMER FILMS starring both Christopher Lee as Count Dracula and Peter Cushing as Van Helsing, have long been on the  'want it' BLU RAYS shopping list of many Hammer film fans. Now in REMASTERED BLU RAYS, that time has finally arrived! If the standard of the print and packaging of the previous WARNER BROTHERS Hammer BOX SET release of Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed, Dracula Has Risen From The Grave, The Mummy and Taste The Blood Of Dracula, is anything to go by, this shpould be a REAL treat. We await any news of EXTRA features. As soon as we get the, you will HEAR IT HERE FIRST!

LOOK OUT FOR UPDATES! MORE NEWS ON THESE RELEASES TO COME!
 

ABOVE ONE OF OUR PAST features on THE SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA  BEHIND THE SCENES :  CLICK HERE!

OUR PCASUK Satanic Rites Of Dracula REVIEW FEATURE and RARE STILLS Gallery : CLICK HERE!

FIND GALLERIES RARE IMAGES and much more besides in our TWO PART SERIES on THE HAMMER DRACULA FLICKS. Featuring some of the BEST moments from the Hammer / Christopher Lee Dracula archive! Now at this website . .

 

#THROWBACKTHURSDAY! BFI ANNOUNCE CUSHING ACTOR OF THE 70'S AND WE REMEMBER NIGEL STOCK

Remembering Today: NIGEL STOCK a superb Watson in the BBC 'Sherlock Holmes' television series of the 60's, with Peter Cushing as Holmes. Sadly, Stock left us in 1986, aged 66....Today would have been his birthday...

NEWS: #THROWBACKTHURSDAY!THE BFI (British Film Institute) have announced they are BUILDING an online film database in which they are breaking down which UK actors appeared in the MOST films in each decade . .. . Peter Cushing represents the 1970's. Wow! What do you think of THAT???

'To launch its online filmography database, the BFI also broke down statistics by decade. The men with the most film appearances are John Le Mesurier (1960s), Peter Cushing (1970s), Robbie Coltrane (1980s), Keith Allen (1990s), Sir Michael Gambon (2000s) and Jim Broadbent (2010s). For actresses, Marianne Stone dominated the 1960s-1970s, followed by Liz Smith (1980s), Sadie Frost (1990s), Shirley Henderson (2000s) and Kate Dickie (2010s) . .. 'The Daily Telegraph' Sept 20th 2017.

#THROWBACKTHURSDAY!: Here is a meeting of the casts from TWO hammer films in released 1971. . . . almost 46 years ago. Eric Porter from 'Hands of the Ripper', the Collinson Twins and Peter Cushing from 'Twins of Evil' .... in the middle producer / director Michael Carreras.

IF YOU LIKE what you see here at our website, you'll  love our daily themed posts at our PCAS FACEBOOK FAN PAGE.  Just click that blue LINK and click LIKE when you get there, and help us . . Keep The Memory Alive!. The Peter Cushing Appreciation Society website, facebook fan page and youtube channel are managed, edited and written by Marcus Brooks, PCAS coordinator since 1979. PCAS is based in the UK and USA