‘Sleep well, Mr Harker…’
For all my obsession with horror, there is a huge part of the genre that I have never explored. The humble monster movie. I’ve never seen any of the Universal monster movies or the Hammer Horror efforts. That means no Frankenstein, no Dracula, no Wolfman, and none of the other less impressive monsters. As a completist, it’s time to address this unbalance…
Following the death of Jonathan Harker (John Van Eyssen) at the hands of the evil Count Dracula (Christopher Lee), Doctor Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) and Arthur Holmwood (Michael Gough) try to keep Jonathan’s young fiance Lucy (Carol Marsh) safe from harm.
A standard retelling of a popular novel then, and one that tragically cuts short Harker’s initial arrival at Klausenburg, and completely omits Dracula’s dramatic entrance at Whitby. That being said, Horror of Dracula or simply Dracula as it was also known, also marks the first appearance of Christopher Lee as the Count, a role he would go on to play a further nine times, making it his own. And it’s easy to see why – Lee simply is Dracula. From the black swept-back hair; to the sharpened incisors – when one thinks of Dracula, it is typically Lee they are thinking of. This is far from a one Count show, however. Cushing’s portrayal of Van Helsing is at least as iconic, and Gough’s Arthur Holmwood makes for a suitably hapless protagonist.
House of Dracula is a classy film hiding inside a trashy one, and in its portrayal of one of the most enduring literary characters of all time, it has probably yet to be bettered. The scares, such as they are, may seem quaint by today’s standards, but it is easy to see why this film has become so iconic. Along with Max Schreck in Nosferatu, and Bela Lugosi in the Universal iteration of Dracula, Lee forms the remaining member of the unholy trinity that set the blueprint for our perception of Dracula ever since. Still a classic.