I'm a bit embarrassed to admit this, but I've never seen any of the Dracula movies from Hammer Films. I only recently learned they existed and I had no idea that Christopher Lee (Saruman and Count Dooku??) was originally famous for playing Dracula in multiple movies. And Peter Cushing (Grand Moff Tarkin??) was famous for playing Van Helsing in multiple of these movies alongside Christopher Lee.
So I'd like to remedy this mistake by watching whichever Christopher Lee Hammer Films are... I won't say "good", but at least the best of what's available? I have a general impression of what Hammer Films are like after watching Captain Kronos and Vampire Circus so I think I have my expectations set appropriately, but maybe the Dracula movies are legitimately good? I'm looking for some suggestions. I'd hate to randomly pick one of these movies only to discover it's the worst one.
If anyone needs a reminder, I believe these are all of the Christopher Lee/Peter Cushing Hammer movies:
- Horror of Dracula
- Brides of Dracula
- Dracula: Prince of Darkness
- Dracula has Risen from the Grave
- Taste the Blood of Dracula
- Scars of Dracula
- Dracula A.D. 1972
- The Satanic Rites of Dracula
- Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires
So I guess... rank these movies for me? Or at least tell me which one(s) to avoid?
Horror of Dracula, prince of darkness, taste the blood of Dracula, and Dracula has risen from the grave are the best of the bunch. Highly recommend all of them.
Brides of Dracula is kind of bad, but charmingly so. It doesn’t have Christopher Lee, and I don’t remember if Peter Cushing is in it either, and I’m too lazy right now to link over to IMDb to confirm. I think I read somewhere that this one was rushed into production to cash in on the surprise success of horror of Dracula, and it shows.
Legend of the 7 golden vampires is probably my personal favorite, but it’s hard to defend as actually being good. This was a co production with the Shaw brothers studio in Hong Kong, and has some of their roster of stars - if you’ve watched Shaw bros movies from this era you will recognize a few faces - but no Christopher Lee, who had at this point been very vocal about his frustration with declining quality and quit the series. Lots of Kung fu action in this one, choreographed by the always amazing Lau Kar Leung. It that’s not your cup of tea you should skip this one.
Lee wasn’t wrong about the declining quality. Dracula 1972 ad and satanic rites are both pretty skippable. They’re not outright bad, just kind of dull.
It doesn’t have dracula, but I highly recommend another hammer vampire movie: captain kronos, vampire hunter.
Thank you! That's exactly the type of information I was looking for!