Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970)

They have destroyed my servant. They will be destroyed... Taste the Blood of Dracula is directed by Peter Sasdy and written by Anthony Hinds (AKA: John Elder). Out of Hammer Film it stars Christopher Lee, Geoffrey Keen, Peter Sallis, Linda Hayden, Gwen Watford and Ralph Bates. Music is by James Bernard and cinematography by Arthur Grant. Trawling through all the sequels of Hammer's Frankenstein and Dracula series it becomes apparent that opinions differ greatly, a case in point is this, the fifth of the Dracula cycle. For her we have a Dracula film thought of very highly in some quarters, most notably in one of the Hammer Films' lauded literary bibles, myself, like the other 50% of Hammer film fans, just don't see that at all. Famously it's the Drac film where Christopher Lee had to be greatly coerced into reprising the role of the blood sucking count, financial rewards doth talk it seems. His apprehension with script and stale feelings were well grounded, with the final result begging the question as to how bad was the script before Lee's intervention? Story has three upstanding English gentlemen showing themselves to be model pillars of society by day, good stern parents/husbands and all that, but by night they are purveyors of a different sordid lifestyle, kind of like members of the naughty Hellfire Club! When decadent dandy Lord Courtley (Bates) offers then something tantalisingly more dangerous, they indulge and it results in murder and the rebirth of Count Dracula. After a neat opening which tags onto the ending of Dracula Has Risen from the Grave, we find Dracula once again on a daft revenge mission, being a bit part once again in a film bearing his name, and saddled with minimal lines that really aren't worth a suck of the neck. Some striking sequences apart (Dracula birth - bloody retributions etc) the film feels like a confused blend of ideas. On one hand it's taking a caustic peak behind the curtain of upper crust Victorian England, on the other it tries to be a period based revenger fronted by the iconic beast of the title. Under Sasdy's direction the look has been stripped back from the Gothic colourful splendour of previous Dracula entries, in place is a more earthy approach, which isn't as appealing. Of course there's a so-so romance simmering away, plenty of heaving bosom and blood shot eyes, and Bernard's musical score hangs around like a moody step-father. Which leaves us with a Hammer Dracula that's not bad at all, it's just ordinary and not all it can be, where they shoehorned Dracula into what is in truth a serial killer like revenge picture. 6/10