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Dracula comes back from the dead again, but this time he’s resurrected in 1972. The only person who can stop the evil Count is a descendent of the original Professor Van Helsing, but can he save the day before his granddaughter becomes another one of Dracula’s victims?
The opening scene of this movie is just cool. It features the “final” fight between the original Van Helsing and Dracula, where they both die. Compared to fight scenes today, it doesn’t seem like much, but it does a good job of setting up the feud between Dracula and the Van Helsings. As well, this opening scene also made me wonder if it was some sort of foreshadowing, indicating that the Van Helsing in 1972 was destined to meet the same tragic fate. The setting of 1972 is actually refreshing after sitting through three other Dracula movies that were set in the 1800’s. Some of the characters’ dialogue is over the top with its 1970’s slang, but that just gives this movie its own unique charm. My only compliant about the setting would be that I wish there was some scenes of Dracula becoming more familiar with the 1970’s. One of the things I liked the most about this film is that Peter Cushing finally returns as Val Helsing. Finally, Dracula is given a strong opponent. It seems like in the previous movies Dracula was always defeated by some snot-nosed Victorian punk, but in Dracula 1972 A.D. he faces someone he has a history with. The feud between Van Helsing and Dracula only adds to the movie, and I found I couldn’t wait to see the final fight between the two of them. The final fight at the end of the film could have been more epic, but it was near perfect for this type of movie.
This is my forth review of a Hammer Dracula movie, and I can’t help but notice that Dracula’s motivation in every movie is the same. Every time he’s resurrected he always finds a reason to want revenge on someone. In some of the other movies such motivation seemed flimsy, but it works in Dracula 1972 A.D. Especially when you consider that there’s a whole other movie, Horror of Dracula, where the hatred between Dracula and Van Helsing began.
I loved the music in this movie, but I think some people might hate it. A lot of the music sounds like 1970’s porno music. Considering that this is a horror movie, darker and scarier music would have better suited it. Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee are fantastic in their roles of Van Helsing and Dracula. However, the rest of the cast ranges from okay to not so great. I also found that a lot of the supporting characters seemed to have got lost in the shuffle as the movie progressed. For example, what happened to the character of Greg? As well, why does Bob just show up at the end of the movie lying outside Dracula’s church in the middle of the day? I think he’s supposed to be dead, but how did he die? Plus as a vampire, shouldn’t the sunlight have burned his body? He almost looks like he’s just asleep. One scene stands out in my mind as being particularly laughable for all the wrong reasons. When Professor Van Helsing discovers that Dracula has lured his granddaughter into a trap at the tavern she frequented, he runs there to see if he can save her in time. After discovering he’s too late, he continues to run around the city in search of his granddaughter. Poor Peter Cushing just looks like he’s ready to drop with a heart attack from all of this running. I was starting to wonder if we were in for a twist ending with Val Helsing taking a heart attack and Dracula swearing revenge against the doctors that couldn’t save him, thus denying him the pleasure of killing Van Helsing himself.
One final thing worth noting is the continuity with Horror of Dracula. According the Wikipedia, this movie does “not correspond to the chronology established in the Victorian/Edwardian era films; the first Hammer Dracula film, Horror of Dracula, is set in the 1880s, whereas the flashback sequence of the last battle between Van Helsing and Dracula in Dracula A.D. 1972 is set in 1872 - long before the first meeting of Van Helsing and Dracula in the original film.” This might be a problem for some viewers, but it didn’t hurt Dracula 1972 A.D. all that much in my eyes. For me, this type of continuity issue isn’t as much of a problem as in the Leprechaun movies when they keep bring back the same character without explaining how he came back from the dead. I would dismiss the type of continuity issue found in Dracula 1972 A.D. as being the result of the filmmakers not having this movie in mind when they made Horror of Dracula. This explanation doesn’t make their mistake right, but I think it’s understandable.
If there’s one word I would use to describe this movie, it would be fun. Seeing Christopher Lee as Dracula is fun, seeing the other vampires do their thing is fun, and seeing the hippies being hippies is fun. Dracula 1972 A.D. probably won’t scare too many viewers today, but I had a lot of fun watching it and I think other horror fans will too.
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