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!

THE SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA : WARNER BROTHERS BLU RAY : REVIEWED SCREEN CAPTURED GIFS AND GALLERY

SPOILERS ALERT! IT GOES WITHOUT SAYING, MOST YOU WHO HAVE come here to read this review will know that 'THE SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA' was the last film in the Hammer Dracula series, to star Christopher Lee as The Count, and also the final time that Peter Cushing would star as Lee's Van Helsing. . .  but I'll say it anyway, because that detail helped to shift and style the film, a film that at first, looks NOTHING like a Hammer Dracula movie!

SUCH WAS THE DISTRIBUTORS unease at what they took to be a miss matched plot, featuring a James Bond type villain vampire, and not knowing how on earth to market it, 'THE SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA' sat for five years gathering dust in the Warner Vault after production wrapped in 1973, until SIX years later when ex Amicus Films partner, Max Rosenberg picked it up with his bargain basement company, Dynamite Films to then, crop, chop and re-edit the film and before kicking it out in the US, to see if it had any more takers, than the UK limited release had failed to attract . . .

IT GOES WITHOUT SAYING, MOST YOU WHO HAVE come here to read this review will know that 'THE SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA' was the last film in the Hammer Dracula series, to star Christopher Lee as The Count, and also the final time that Peter Cushing would star as Lee's Van Helsing. . .  but I'll say it anyway, because that detail helped to shift and style the film, a film that at first, looks NOTHING like a Hammer Dracula movie! Such was the distributors unease at what they took to be a miss matched plot, featuring a James Bond type villain vampire, and not knowing how on earth to market it, 'THE SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA' sat for five years gathering dust in the Warner Vault after production wrapped in 1973, until SIX years later when ex Amicus Films partner, Max Rosenberg picked it up with his bargain basement company, Dynamite Films to then, crop, chop and re-edit the film and before kicking it out in the US, to see if it had any more takers, than the UK limited release had failed to attract . . .

ROSENBERG'S also recrafted the title, 'COUNT DRACULA AND HIS VAMPIRE', offers all you need to know about, why Amicus films always had such naff titles when they hit UK cinemas. It's true, SATANIC RITES, is nowhere in the same realm as Cushing and Lee's first Hammer DRACULA outing in 1958. But back in the days of 1958, Hammer were not only treading on new ground, they were also actually creating some very new earth, ALONG with those steps! Back then, critics blew their gaskets and censors were forever poised with their red pens!  What The Satanic Rites of Dracula gives us is, had it been succesful, a NEW direction and and style, just like back in 1958! 😉

'SATANIC' THOUGH IT HAD STEAM, arrived late at the platform, and after Lee had played the Count in FIVE other Hammer visits to Castle Dracula, wearing out the terrified villagers and squeezing the last drop of any originalty from his many buxom wench-like drought stricken vampires victims. The 'SATANIC' concept was new, refreshing and quite savvy. But it would take decades, before an audience would finally see the point, of more than Dracula's fangs. The truth is the 'Hammer Dracula Truck' had long run out of fuel and backers, the Gothic scene was thought of, as past it and well worn, long beyond the point of predictable. Hammer films were looking for a new direction, a post- Gothic box, in which to repackage and wrap Lee's Dracula. A Dracula which was still bankable and box office, if only they could get Lee to agree to return and also create a 'new scene'.

IT WAS 'THE SCENE', in the truest post psychedelic sense, that provided the new direction and path. For traditionalists, this caused a problem, in two ways. One, the film that had first stepped into this new setting for the Hammer Dracula return . . . after the hit and miss garish and gory 1970 'SCARS OF DRACULA'. .  was DRACULA AD 1972. Based in London, with a gang of hip and trendy 'youngsters' it was dressed in flared pants, flower power vests, platform shoes and had a soul and funky 'Shaft-like' score. And two, all these rebooted qualities even in 72, were slightly out of date and late, by the time Hammer brought their new and relevant setting to the big screen. It's never a good idea to bring in 'men in suits' and already in their late 50's to create a trend or fashion, their idea of youth / gang langauge and lingo for 'the kids'. Their spin and take, has usually already been long taken away and past it.

AND SO, it was declared, even though the NEXT film, would be in some sense a sequel to DRACULA AD 1972, it would drop most of the fashion statements, and focus the concept not on long hair, hot pants and 'time', but craftily pick up a genre, that had been picking up BIG box office returns and small screen profits and followers for the last few years. The world of Spies, Intrigue, Bankers, Science and the James Bond Villain! The script writer, in my personal opinion got it spot on, not just with SATANIC RITES but DRACULA AD 1972 also. Hammer had run out of DRACULA puff, both 'SCARS' and 'TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACULA' suffer from Christopher Lee's reluctance to appear in the films, reducing his screen time, affecting the story, side tracking into support casts love stories and 'dirty mac brigade' titillation . ..  more importantly, everything produced after the 1968 DRACULA PRINCE OF DARKNESS, failed to provide DRACULA with a worthy and competent advisory. Van Helsing Hammer's box office vampire slayer, was AWOL! It was only when Cushing returned, and the story was given some historical character back bone detail, that Dracula truly engages in, that we are to some respect, back in the frame of anything resembling what we love about that 1958 classic. Danger. Emotion. Conflict and Reason. 

THE SCRIPT WRITER for both films, AD and Satanic was Don Houghton. Don had written episodes of the BBC series DOCTOR WHO, ACE OF WANDS and 38 episodes of drama and doctor stories in tv's 'EMERGENCY WARD 10'. Though not really responsible for the flapping fashion, the 'cool man' dig it lingo, Don's feel for drama and tension is spot on and would serve him well just a few years later, in the very popular tv series, 'The Professionals'. Houghton's mixing of the Hammer Gothic DRACULA, with a wink to black magic and the historical baggage of the Van Helsing family, worked like a treat! For some, that is. As in 1972, there are still some traditionalist Hammer fans, that will not watch AD or Satanic Rites nor except the changes that Broughton brought to these productions. . .   Even though, there are many moments of high drama within the re-connection and appearance of Lee and Cushing, battling on the screen together again, that offer some great scenes and moments. Moments that had not been seen in previous Hammer Dracula movies, for quite sometime.

IF YOU HAVE SEEN any of the grotty, blurred and rip off VHS and DVD's of 'SATANIC RITES' over the past 30 odd years, you'll have an idea of what most of the story is about, even though watching the fuzzy film, was like it was being reflected on a Fun House Mirror! Needless to say, all that pirated, time wasting and expensive lack of visual quality, has now all gone! The TECHNICAL WONDER of the remastered film, has like the story, been pushed into a NEW AGE, and lovingly remastered onto BLU RAY! 😚😉

SO DOES THE WARNER BROTHERS BLU RAY get THE RITES... RIGHT? Firstly, the good news is, you can take all your previous DVD dodgy copies and put them to rest or in the trash. The Warner Brothers scare ANOTHER MAJOR HIT with their remastering. The colours are beautiful and quite vivid. Skin tones and texture are not waxy, but look real and features are sharp. The blacks are BLACK. There is great depth to interior shots and some of Director Alan Gibson's focus pulls, are a treat to watch. 

SEVERAL TIMES I saw things on screen, I had never seen before. The close up's on Cushing's face, are very clear, as with the details on Christopher Lee's facial reactions, they look surprisingly powerful and different, if you have become used to that blurred DVD version. During the DRACULA death scene, new ellements can now be seen and these too look amazingly clear and again contain touches, you would have not seen before. While watching all these new qualities, you'll be pleased to hear... just THAT! The quality of the audio is excellent. I have watched this blu ray, exactly as I watch all my movies, wearing headphones. I don't want to missed anything! Presented as it was, back in 1973, the soundtrack in mono with a musical score, that has never sounded better. I could not hear any distortions, even when the Valerie Van Ost vampire screamed or the motor cycles or thunder rumbled!

WARNER BROTHERS yet again, score maxium points, continuing their very high standard of remastering excellence, first started with their outstanding Hammer Horror Collection Volume One release box set. Any Hammer, Cushing, Lee, Dracula fan or collector, who has suffered years of the dire poorness of previous releases of this film, would be truly missing out on what is now, the best gob-smacking experence of the film, at last available to watch, enhanced and worth every penny or cent! HIGHLY recommended! 

 

 A FULL REVIEW, GALLERY AND SCREEN CAPTURES from WARNER BROTHERS remastered blu ray of DRACULA AD 1972, coming VERY soon . .