Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Taste the Blood of Hammer!!, 16 Jul 2004
Taste the Blood of Dracula is another great film from the House of Hammer.This DVD is the uncut version, which includes the brothel scenes, the killing of Lord Courtley.
The film begins with Roy Kinnear, a salesman on a carriage ride trying to sell an item to 2 odd looking men,he gets thrown off the carriage, witneses the killing of Dracula (Christopher Lee). Three Victorian gentlemen who keep respectability in front of their families are drawn in to Dracula's resurrection courtesy of Lord Courtley(Ralph Bates).
In a disused church, Dracula is brought back to life by the blood of Courtley & seeks revenge on them & their families,who destroyed him.
Although Christopher Lee has a very small part in the film, this is still a good film by Hammer Studio's.There are great supporting roles for Linda Hayden, Isla Blair & Anthony Corlan. The DVD's only extra features is a trailer & scene selection which is a shame but at least it is the uncut version. The picture quality is also an improvement. Worth buying!
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Last Dracula Made Worth Seeing, 11 Jun 2005
Made as a follow up to Dracula Has Risen From The Grave, it does work rather well. Set in Victorian London, a group of business men who have become rather bored with their way of life are tempted to explore the world of darkness. They get more than they bargain for when Dracula is resurrected and sets about his vengeance when his servant (Ralp Bates) is murdered by the three businessmen. Its a good story helped along by its gothic atmosphere and good sets. Good to see the lovely Linda Hayden in this, her career never really took off which was a shame for she was a decent actress who more often than not ended up in low budget flicks which did little for her career. Dracula (Christopher Lee, who else?) says very little during the film, but his presence adds menace throughout. The supporting cast are good too, Peter Sallis; Geoffrey Keen and Gwen Watford just to name a few. It was sadly, the last film made in the Dracula series which is of any merit, so am sure Hammer fans would add this to their collection. Good sound and picture and can be bought for a good price too.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Taste the Blood of Dracula, 7 Oct 2007
With the substantial success of the previous 2 sequels, Hammer began filming Taste the Blood of Dracula in 1969. Released early in 1970, this film, perhaps partially drawing on Hammer's earlier success with Christopher Lee in the film 'The Devil Rides Out', (1968) would deepen the connection between Dracula & Satanism still further. But how would Hammer ressurect the Count yet again? This was acheived in a flashback to the end of 'Dracula Has Risen From The Grave', in which we see that Dracula's destruction whilst impaled on the cross had been witnessed from the opposite angle by a traveller played by Roy Kinnear, who had been thrown from his carriage. This traveler called Weller, scooped up some of Dracula's blood, which has disintegrated to a red (as opposed to the grey of the first 2 movies) powder, along with Dracula's cloak & clasp & ring etc... before eventually returning to his native London. This was finally a way of getting Dracula at large in Victorian London, which had been completely omitted by Hammer in their original movie.
The London setting gives Hammer an oppurtunity to go to town on their set design once again. The film is as visually sumptuous as any costume drama, & is absolutely awash with Victorian richness & english gothic beauty. It's in this setting that we meet 3 rich Victorian 'gentlemen' who meet secretly to seek out forbidden thrills to enhance their staid, borgoueis lives. On the pretence of doing charity work, they visit brothels, whilst compounding their hypocrasy further by limiting the natural desires of their young adult children who live under the rule of patriachal tyranny.
Aspiring to go further in their thrill seeking, led by William Hargood, they meet with a young decadent upstart called Lord Courtly, who is played with great relish by the suberb & underated Ralph Bates. Courtly persuades these rich fathers to part with some of their brass in order to buy the remnants of Dracula from Weller, so that the power seeking Lord Courtly can ressurect Dracula by performing a Satanistic ritual, in which he mixes his own blood with the powdered remains of Dracula, & encourages his charges to drink red frothing mixture. But the rich thrill seekers have clearly bitten off more than they can chew, & they can't bring themselves to go through with it. So Courtly drinks the foul brew, & after he promptly falls ill, the cowardly bunch help Courtly to his death by beating him with their sticks. But after they've left Courtly for dead after imbibing Dracula's blood, he is transformed & ressurected into Dracula, & Lee, in virtually his only line of the movie, gravely intones: 'They have destroyed my servant...they will be destroyed!' - Upon which the Count begins to wreak a revenge upon 3 men, via their children.
Hargood & his companions begin to fall apart in their fear, & Dracula soon moves in on Hargood's beautiful daughter Alice, played by the gorgeous Linda Hayden, to be his first victim. Once again there's a magnified sense of anticipation when Alice is under Dracula's hypnotic influence, that goes beyond the previous sexual hints & almost borders on the semi-orgasmic. Linda Hayden acheives possibly the best portrayal since the first movie of a woman under completely under Dracula's spell. At the Count's instruction, Alice kills her despotic father with great relish by forcefully clobbering him with a spade, bringing Geoffrey Keen's splendid perforamance as Hargood to an abrupt end. I love the look that she gives Dracula as she turns to seek his approval with a satisfied smile on her face!
Alice then lures her friend Lucy Paxton to Dracula's lair, where she initially proves to be somewhat resistant to his mesmerism, but she succumbs after Alice forces her to face the Count, & her reaction to the vampire bite is again remeniscent of sexual ecstacy, whilst Alice wishfully looks on. Meanwhile, the two rich fathers who remain alive, Paxton & Secker, find the vampirized Lucy at the deconsecrated church, & when Secker tries to stake Lucy, the deranged Paxton shoots him, & after a time decides he must do the job himself. But he is shocked when her eyes snap open, & suddenly Dracula & Alice emerge from the shadows, & Paxton finds himself cornered by the 3 vampires, & at Dracula's bidding, he is staked by his own daughter, helped by Alice. Lee's Dracula has a literally commanding presence in these scenes as he orchestrates his revenge, which is extracted by the 2 female vampires with smiles of great relish as they kill Paxton!
Next, Lucy seeks out & vampirizes Secker's son Jeremy, (played by a young Martin Jarvis), who in turn kills his father to complete Dracula's revenge on the 3 toffs. Not satisfied with this however, Dracula turns on Lucy after she grovels after him, showing that he can use the vampire bite either to bring about ecstacy, or to kill....
Alice is spared this fate by the onset of the dawn, & whilst Dracula is at rest in his tomb, she lays on top to be close to her master whilst he sleeps. In the meantime, her suitor, Paul, following instructions laid out in a letter which Secker managed to write before he died, is seeking to destroy Dracula & rescue his beloved Alice. On the way to Dracula's lair he finds the now dead Lucy's body, left to drown in the river, before engaging Dracula in a final confrontation, at the old church.
It's at this point that the film lets itself down slightly with a relatively poorly conceived ending, IMO. It's not made explicit in the film, but it appears that Paul resanctifies the church in some way. He places a cross at the door, & relights new candles at the altar, where he also places crosses. In the struggle with Dracula he is betrayed by Alice, who wrestles the golden cross which he is using against Dracula, away from him. Alice is desperate to please her master, but after Dracula rejects her, she throws the cross in his path, trapping him between that one & the other large cross which Paul lodged in the door. Inexplicably, the Count escapes up into the balcony where he hurls various objects at Paul & Alice before he's seemingly overcome by the religious ormamention of the stained glass windows which depict images of Christ & the crucifix etc... Then he simply weakens plummets from the high window, falling to his destruction on the church altar, where his body dissolves to powder once again.
Compared to the previous films, i find this a bit of a feeble & somewhat vague demise for the Count, but in all other respects 'Taste the Blood of Dracula' remains one of my favourite sequels. It's a very dark toned film, quite violent & gory for it's time, & it's steeped in a gothic atmosphere that showcases some excellent performances from likes of John Carson, Peter Sallis, Isla Blair, & particularly from the aforementioned Geoffrey Keen, Linda Hayden, & of course Lee. Special mention again to Ralph Bates who steals the show in the first half of the film as Lord Courtley. With such a superb cast, it never occurs to me whilst i'm watching it, to even notice or feel the lack of Peter Cushing as Van Helsing. Were it not for the poorer ending, this film would get 9/10, on a par with 'Dracula: Prince of Darkness', but the ending, whilst not terrible loses the film half a point for me, So: 8.5/10.
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