Friday, February 17, 2012

Horror of Dracula - Hammer Films

Actors: Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Michael Gough, Melissa Stribling, Carol Marsh, Jophn Van Eyssen
Rating: 6 out of 10, a film from my youth when movies used to be recycled through theaters because there were no VHS or DVDs. I just loved the Hammer horror films, they were so English. I received a boxed set of them for this past Christmas. Both Cushing and Lee were favorites of mine and these movies scared the crap out of me in the 1960s. I guess its a comment about how much movies have changed but as I watched this last night I was amused at how tame it is now. Christopher Lee has been around for so long, recently appearing in the Lord of the Rings as Saruman. He was always the scariest Dracula for me - much more so than Lugosi or any of the modern incarnations. The real star of this series of films was Cushing, a really good actor, who plays Doctor Van Helsing here. It's interesting that both he and Lee became associated with the Star Wars series; Cushing as the original villain, Tarkin, in the first movie and Lee as Count Dooku in the newer films. I really enjoyed watching this purely from the nostalgia it presented. The dialogue was also so polite; it reminded me of a bygone era.
MVP: Cushing as the stalwart but at the same time frail Dr Van Helsing

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