Even Scars Of Dracula Gets a Pass, But...
A brief reflection on when Dracula sucked, pun intended.
This is something I wrote in a Hammer group:
There’s a degree to which I enjoy all of Hammer’s Dracula films, and therefore a degree to which I will give them all a pass and watch them again. It must be said, though, that Scars of Dracula (1970) is the second worst of that series, with only Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972) beating it to that ignoble title.
Why?
It is a redundant film, in that it adds nothing to the character of Dracula, exploits nothing of significance of the character, and is a merely incidental story about a couple of lovers whose love is threatened by Dracula and cemented by his predictable destruction.
The acting is wooden, and the embarrasing distraction of bawdy comedy, which, I learned from Wayne Kinsey’s The Hammer Dracula Scrapbook was filmed on May 12, 1970, does nothing to save it. If anything, it helps kill it.
That, and the zero-thrills climax in which Dracula is not beaten by ingenious entrapment by a daring hero, but dies like a clumsy sucker by a lazy script contrivance.
The mockworthy trend of Dracula dying silly deaths, by tripping up and falliing over, and silly things like that, actually started as early as the second film, Dracula—Prince Of Darkness (1966), although in that, and Dracula Has Risen From The Grave (1968), both, along with Taste The Blood of Dracula (1970), when the films were still deliciously good, there is at least a semblance of heroic ingenuity or follow-through.
Scars of Dracula also helps cement the descent of Hammer’s Dracula films from horror film to date movie. Think about it. In Dracula Has Risen From The Grave, Taste The Blood Of Dracula, and Scars of Dracula, the formula is thus:
Boy loves girl. Pious father or other figure blocks that love. That figure crosses Dracula and gets killed, sometimes by the girl. Dracula kidnaps girl. Boy gives chase. Dracula trips up and dies. Boy and girl unite.
I’ll leave you to ponder what that says about removing parents for love.
Christopher Lee is at least reliably imposing as the Count, and gets to say some nice lines and be slightly more Stoker-ish, even if his character is really only a set dressing to put the saleable Dracula name in the title, with nothing to do but skulk around and hiss.
James Bernard’s score is the best thing about it—and I do love that. It possesses perhaps the best love theme he ever wrote for a Dracula film, and, trust me, he wrote some nice ones.
