Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb.
Speaker 3: And this is Joe McCormick. And today on Weird House
Speaker 3: Cinema we're going to be talking about the Oh. I
Speaker 3: usually say the year, but now I'm not so sure.
Speaker 3: Was it actually released in nineteen seventy two?
Speaker 2: Yes it was, And I want to stress Joe that
Speaker 2: it was released nineteen seventy two of the common era.
Speaker 3: Okay, not nineteen seventy two BCE. Right, this is Dracula
Speaker 3: AD nineteen seventy two, the Hammer horror movie starring Christopher
Speaker 3: Lee and Peter Cushing.
Speaker 2: That's right. So last week we not only did a
Speaker 2: Frankenstein movie, we did one of the best known and
Speaker 2: most beloved of all Frankenstein movies, nineteen thirty five is
Speaker 2: Bride of Frankenstein. And to follow that up, I just
Speaker 2: I have been feeling weeks in advance. It's like we
Speaker 2: would need to do a Dracula movie after that. But
Speaker 2: which one? Right, There's so many Dracula films to choose from.
Speaker 2: We've been talking about doing nineteen thirty one's Dracula or
Speaker 2: the Mexican Dracula film that came out the same year.
Speaker 2: Those I think are both fine choices. But I found
Speaker 2: I was craving not just a drac movie, but a
Speaker 2: weird spin on Dracula, which brings us back to the
Speaker 2: world of late franchise ingenuity, which is something I always enjoy.
Speaker 2: You know that point in a film franchise where people realize,
Speaker 2: all right, we've done the same thing over and over again.
Speaker 2: We need to go in a new direction. We need
Speaker 2: to spice it up. What can we do?
Speaker 3: Dracula goes West or Dracula in Space that's actually that's
Speaker 3: a real movie, Dracula three thousand.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, these are all valid choices. Dracula and the
Speaker 2: Old West has also been done. I just love it
Speaker 2: when a franchise gets maybe a little desperate and starts
Speaker 2: taking some risks. And that's where we are with the
Speaker 2: seventh film. In Hammer Horror Dracula series kicked it off
Speaker 2: with fifty eight Stracula the nineteen sixties, The Brides of Dracula,
Speaker 2: then Dracula Prince of Darkness in sixty six, then Dracula
Speaker 2: Has Risen from the Grave in sixty eight, then Taste
Speaker 2: the Blood of Dracula in seventy well, and then we
Speaker 2: have Scars of Dracula I think that's the same year.
Speaker 2: And then we get to Dracula AD nineteen seventy two,
Speaker 2: which had the fabulous working title of Dracula Today.
Speaker 3: It sounds almost like the name of a publication, like
Speaker 3: it's a magazine for the modern Dracula connoisseur.
Speaker 2: Yeah, alright. I mentioned it to my wife and she's like,
Speaker 2: it sounds like a morning show, like Dracula hosts the
Speaker 2: morning show. It's Dracula Today, and he's got his hot
Speaker 2: mug of blood. So yeah, I think it's so at
Speaker 2: this point in the film franchise, Yeah, we're definitely in
Speaker 2: that experimental mode and it would stay that way for
Speaker 2: the duration. The film to follow this up was seventy
Speaker 2: three is The Satanic Rites of Dracula, which I have
Speaker 2: not seen, but I've definitely flagged it because it's my
Speaker 2: understanding that it's sort of a Dracula spy movie.
Speaker 3: Yes, I have seen this one. I've mentioned this on
Speaker 3: the show before, but this was an especially hilarious movie
Speaker 3: viewing experience because I watched it with early YouTube auto
Speaker 3: generated subtitles with a group of friends, and the subtitles
Speaker 3: were all wrong. There was one point where somebody I
Speaker 3: don't remember what the actual line in the movie was,
Speaker 3: but the subtitle took it for the boat carrying general freeballs.
Speaker 2: General freebops. Okay, I don't think he's established in this film,
Speaker 2: though some of the characters from this film will carry
Speaker 2: on into the next one.
Speaker 3: There's also a line that the subtitles interpreted as Peter
Speaker 3: Cushing or a Peter Cushing type guy answering a telephone
Speaker 3: and saying saw it on Twitter, and I was shocked.
Speaker 2: All right. So we've definitely flagged that one for later.
Speaker 2: The final Dracula movie from Hammer Pictures was actually a
Speaker 2: co production with Shaw Brothers. It is nineteen seventy four,
Speaker 2: is the Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires and East
Speaker 2: Meets West Vampires film. This one's been on the list
Speaker 2: for a long time. I haven't seen it yet, but
Speaker 2: I mean, how can you resist such a mashup?
Speaker 3: How could it go wrong? I've got to see that one.
Speaker 2: So yeah. Today's movie, Dracula AD nineteen seventy two, takes
Speaker 2: the Dracula franchise into modern times in a way. It's
Speaker 2: kind of a predecessor to nineteen seventy nine's Time after Time,
Speaker 2: which we previously talked about in the show.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I can see that. I mean so in
Speaker 3: that episode we came up with a taxonomy of different
Speaker 3: kinds of time travel movies. This isn't exactly a time
Speaker 3: travel movie because nobody actually travels, there is no time machine,
Speaker 3: nobody leaves the time they're naturally in. But it is
Speaker 3: a generation spanning movie where the vampire is slain in
Speaker 3: one era and resurrected in another. So you might expect
Speaker 3: there to be some I don't know so kind of
Speaker 3: a fish out of time elements like we talked about
Speaker 3: in that episode where the character from the past is
Speaker 3: forced to deal with how things have changed in the
Speaker 3: modern world. I must say, none of that. There's nothing,
Speaker 3: nothing like that at all. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And I've seen some reviewers who come more recent reviewers
Speaker 2: who've commented on that, like saying, why is there not
Speaker 2: like a fish out of water, a fish out of
Speaker 2: time plot element to this? And I'm part of my
Speaker 2: thinking on that, I'm thinking, Okay, well, you don't want
Speaker 2: to make Dracula look foolish. This film takes Dracula's status seriously,
Speaker 2: and Dracula remains like a severe threat. He is just
Speaker 2: hunger and evil. But on the other hand, as we've
Speaker 2: seen in other films, it can be done. You can
Speaker 2: do the Fish out of Time at least a little
Speaker 2: bit and have the character that is engaging and it
Speaker 2: still be fearsome. The example that comes to mind, just
Speaker 2: off the top of my head would be The Terminator.
Speaker 2: It's not much of a Fish out of Time, but
Speaker 2: there is that one funny moment where he tries to
Speaker 2: go in and buy a plasma rifle from Dick Miller.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, just what you see pal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that's a funny moment, but it doesn't make
Speaker 2: the Terminator less terrifying in that film. So there's some
Speaker 2: sort of balance that would have been possible with Dracula
Speaker 2: going out at night and feeding on hippies. But Dracula
Speaker 2: just doesn't get out in this movie and do that
Speaker 2: sort of thing.
Speaker 3: That's exactly the issue. So the movie is trying to
Speaker 3: be a it's trying to be conceptually Fish out of Time.
Speaker 3: It's trying to say, okay, we have this monster from
Speaker 3: a different era. You know, he came to London in
Speaker 3: this movie. In the eighteen seventies and suddenly he's here
Speaker 3: in the nineteen seventies, and whoa, it's a crazy context.
Speaker 3: There are all these hippies and cars everywhere. This is
Speaker 3: not what we expect to see surrounding Dracula. But Dracula
Speaker 3: is never like, he never meets any of that stuff
Speaker 3: in his resurrected form. He just hangs out in a church.
Speaker 3: So I don't think he ever even sees any of
Speaker 3: the signs of the modern world.
Speaker 2: Right right, He's just ordering like takeout delivery essentially the
Speaker 2: whole time. He doesn't get out and see that world.
Speaker 2: You know, whether he'd be phased by the changes in
Speaker 2: the world, who can say. I mean, maybe maybe Dracula
Speaker 2: just sees blood at the end of the day and
Speaker 2: so it doesn't matter. He's like, that's it doesn't it
Speaker 2: doesn't matter at all. Just bring me the blood. But
Speaker 2: maybe you could have had some neat moments.
Speaker 3: The Dracula in this movie does not seem very impressed
Speaker 3: or even very reactive to anything around him. He you know,
Speaker 3: there's the part where his lackey raises him from the
Speaker 3: dead and says, master, I've brought you back, and he
Speaker 3: just says it was my will. He walks past him,
Speaker 3: So I don't know. I kind of think that that
Speaker 3: aloofness and high handedness might come through as well if
Speaker 3: he were forced to, you know, be around automobiles or
Speaker 3: something and be like, you wouldn't even notice them. He
Speaker 3: just walked past him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it would have been interesting to see how they
Speaker 2: would have handled it. Now, one thing I want to
Speaker 2: mention about this this particular the movie is with its
Speaker 2: elements of like hippies and groovy London counterculture to the
Speaker 2: limited extent that it is explored. As I was digging
Speaker 2: on this one, I was like, oh, man, I wonder
Speaker 2: if this one is Electric Wizard certified, because the themes
Speaker 2: just seem to fit too perfectly for this to not
Speaker 2: be the case, And so I looked it up. I
Speaker 2: grabbed the book Come My Fanatics, A Journey into the
Speaker 2: World of Electric Wizard by Dan Franklin, which came out
Speaker 2: earlier this year, and it basically is just filled with
Speaker 2: various movies references and movie mentions that line up with
Speaker 2: their work, and it is in fact cited as an influence.
Speaker 2: Dracula eighty nineteen seventy two is cited as an influence
Speaker 2: on the excellent two thousand and seven album which cult today.
Speaker 3: I know the Wizard and I can see this movie
Speaker 3: being right up their alley. They love some witch Finders
Speaker 3: and some hammer Horror and all that good stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean satanic rites of Drugula obvious. Obviously there's
Speaker 2: a connection there. The title of track on the album
Speaker 2: which cult today, it's one of Dracula today. And then
Speaker 2: they also have that Torquamada seventy one track which also
Speaker 2: has sort of like similarities to the title here. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I can see this one as having been a strong
Speaker 2: influence now that it's been pointed out to me.
Speaker 3: Now here's a question. This is a convention. I can
Speaker 3: think of several examples of movies like this where it's
Speaker 3: Dracula and then just the number of years. So there's
Speaker 3: Dracula nineteen seventy two, Dracula two thousand, and Dracula three thousand,
Speaker 3: which is the one in space with Casper van Deen.
Speaker 2: Is that one in the year three thousand?
Speaker 3: I guess it's supposed to be. That one's really really
Speaker 3: not good like z Grade, though it does make one
Speaker 3: choice that I really like, which is it sets it
Speaker 3: in the future. So they're on like a space ship.
Speaker 3: I think Casper Vanden's character is Captain von Helsing of
Speaker 3: the USS whatever it is, maybe the Demoter, I don't know,
Speaker 3: but the like they come across Dracula in a Darrylic spaceship.
Speaker 3: But then when they wake him up, is he like
Speaker 3: a spacey Dracula. Is he wearing kind of a spooky
Speaker 3: space suit. No, he's just dressed in like a Halloween
Speaker 3: store Dracula costume, with like the cape and the high
Speaker 3: collar and the ruffles.
Speaker 2: You know. I doubt they pulled it off and made
Speaker 2: it work, but on paper, I respect the choice. I
Speaker 2: do like it when Dracula is like powerful in spite
Speaker 2: of the tropiness of the way he is dressed. And
Speaker 2: I think that an example that can be found in
Speaker 2: this movie because Christopher Lee, again his Dracula, maybe doesn't
Speaker 2: have as much to do, doesn't get to do as
Speaker 2: much killing and exploring as we would like, but it
Speaker 2: is still a strong screen presence. It is still like
Speaker 2: a terrifying vision of Dracula.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think Christopher Lee is almost always pretty strong.
Speaker 3: I think he's good in the moments he has, though
Speaker 3: I do think the movie under uses him. We kind
Speaker 3: of don't get enough Christopher Lee, and we don't get
Speaker 3: enough of several of the movie's big selling points.
Speaker 2: That's true, that's true. Oh but come back to what
Speaker 2: you were saying. Yeah, Dracula said. But it was also
Speaker 2: released as Dracula's seventy three in France and Spain as
Speaker 2: it came out in seventy three, so they had upgrade
Speaker 2: the title. Nobody wants last year's Dracula. I mean, come on,
Speaker 2: but it's worth looking up the French poster for Dracula
Speaker 2: seventy three because it's absolutely stunning. It's like, I don't
Speaker 2: even know how to explain it. It's got this weird
Speaker 2: kind of I don't know, almost kind of like our
Speaker 2: deco looking font. And then Dracula's head is like this
Speaker 2: psychedelic floating visage in the sky, gazing hungrily at bikini women.
Speaker 3: It really doesn't look like Christopher Lee. It's more like
Speaker 3: a floating monster mask that is bleeding colors into the stratosphere.
Speaker 2: Yes, so look that up. It's good. Now. I want
Speaker 2: to stress that this movie is not everyone's favorite. Roger
Speaker 2: Ebert only gave it one star, single star. Michael Weldon
Speaker 2: of Psychotronic Film Guide called this one's time quote a
Speaker 2: big mistake. And I even touch base with Hammer fan
Speaker 2: and former producer of the show Seth Nichols Johnson, who
Speaker 2: again big fan of a lot of Hammer films. He
Speaker 2: says this is not one of his favorites. He likes it,
Speaker 2: but is not one of his favorites.
Speaker 3: Fair enough. I think it'll make for a good discussion
Speaker 3: on the show, But I say it's not one of
Speaker 3: the best Hammer Horror Draculas. I think Horror of Dracula
Speaker 3: is much better.
Speaker 2: No, No, I think to enjoy this film, you've got
Speaker 2: to be on board for again late franchise innovation, for
Speaker 2: some sort of you know, risky if not completely realized,
Speaker 2: dream of where Dracula could take you. And I guess
Speaker 2: also the further away we are from it in time,
Speaker 2: the more it has been allowed to age, because I
Speaker 2: know a lot of these commentators were talking about when
Speaker 2: it first came out. Weldon criticized it as being already
Speaker 2: dated when it hit the screen, But we've had decades
Speaker 2: for this film to mature, and now we can appreciate
Speaker 2: it for what it is.
Speaker 3: I suspect people might have found the hippie caricatures more
Speaker 3: grating in the seventies. I find them delightfully amusing.
Speaker 2: Now, yeah, yeah, I think that could be part of it.
Speaker 2: All right, elevator pitch for this one. I would say
Speaker 2: these hippies are such a drain on society. Of course,
Speaker 2: they resurrected Dracula.
Speaker 3: It's the dope, it's the Devil music, it's the Dracula rites.
Speaker 2: That's right, my other one that came up with his parents.
Speaker 2: Be aware of these warning signs that your twenty five
Speaker 2: year old teenager may be involved with drugs, sex, black masses,
Speaker 2: rock music, and Dracula resurrection.
Speaker 3: We do have several parenting scenes where Peter Cushing is
Speaker 3: trying to exert a positive influence on his granddaughter Jessica.
Speaker 3: You know, he's trying to figure out, like, hey, are
Speaker 3: her friends on the level, but it just doesn't go anywhere.
Speaker 2: No, all right, let's listen to some trailer audio.
Speaker 4: Yesterday, Draculife was the most fearsome being the screen has
Speaker 4: ever seen. Today tonight you you.
Speaker 5: You could be Dracula's next victim.
Speaker 6: Something new yet as old as time. Come on, Johnny,
Speaker 6: a date with the Devil. Are you ready? He's ready?
Speaker 7: He's waiting to freak you out right out of this world.
Speaker 6: Night September eighteenth, eighteen seventy two, one hundred years ago
Speaker 6: to the day.
Speaker 2: You witnesses.
Speaker 6: You must swear before the name of the devil to
Speaker 6: keep it secret.
Speaker 5: Who knows about vampires?
Speaker 3: For God's sake, my.
Speaker 4: Grandfather died fat, most terrible us go.
Speaker 5: To them out of altar.
Speaker 7: The year is nineteen seventy two, a leap year in horror,
Speaker 7: a vintage year for vampires. Come the time for the
Speaker 7: masters of horror to meet again in.
Speaker 5: The twentieth century.
Speaker 7: Come to me, Condracula.
Speaker 2: All right. Well, if at this point you would like
Speaker 2: to go watch Dracula eighty nineteen seventy two for yourself,
Speaker 2: well you're in luck because this one was released through
Speaker 2: Warner Brothers, so it's widely available. It's even currently available
Speaker 2: in the States, at least on Max. Looks like they
Speaker 2: have a number of Hammer horror flicks in there, so yeah,
Speaker 2: go crazy. You can also get it on basically any
Speaker 2: physical or digital format you desire.
Speaker 3: All right, let's do those connections.
Speaker 2: All right. The director is Alan Gibson, who lived nineteen
Speaker 2: thirty eight through nineteen eighty seven, Canadian director who worked
Speaker 2: a lot in the UK, with TV work going back
Speaker 2: to the mid sixties, but it's his horror work that
Speaker 2: most remember him for today. His credits include nineteen seventies
Speaker 2: Goodbye Jim and I, which I believe is some sort
Speaker 2: of scary twin movie this film, of course, and its
Speaker 2: follow up nineteen seventy three is The Satanic Rights of Dracula.
Speaker 2: He also continued to work in TV and directed episodes
Speaker 2: of the anthology series thriller Tales of the Unexpected and
Speaker 2: Hammer House of Horror. In fact, one of the Hammer
Speaker 2: House of Horror episodes he directed was The Silent Scream,
Speaker 2: starring Peter Cushing, but also a young Brian Cox, who
Speaker 2: was actually I think we did the Math. He would
Speaker 2: have been like thirty four at the time.
Speaker 3: Wow, it's hard to understand that I'm looking at Brian
Speaker 3: Cox younger than I am now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, he came out with I mean, Brian Cox
Speaker 2: has always made a career of you know, playing at
Speaker 2: least you know, heavies and formidable personalities. Formidable personalities, yeah,
Speaker 2: not so much, you know, leading man type stuff. So yeah,
Speaker 2: he's one of those actors who, perhaps even early on,
Speaker 2: always looked like he was in his late forties at least.
Speaker 2: But great actor. I haven't seen the episode, but I'm
Speaker 2: might have to seek it out.
Speaker 3: And you said it's also got Peter Cushing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Peter Cushing. You know, it's just he was
Speaker 2: he was on speed dial for Himmer. They needed him
Speaker 2: for something. He's like, yeah, is it a movie? Fine?
Speaker 2: There TV show, Great, I need a flight to China. Great,
Speaker 2: Let's make it work.
Speaker 3: It's nice to have steady work.
Speaker 2: Yes, all right. The screenwriter for this one is Don Hoten,
Speaker 2: who lived nineteen thirty through nineteen ninety one, British television
Speaker 2: screenwriter and producer whose writing credits include thirteen episodes of
Speaker 2: Doctor Who from nineteen seventy, The Satanic Rites of Dracula,
Speaker 2: the Seven Golden Vampires movie, and also another show, Brothers
Speaker 2: Hammer co production from seventy four, an action picture titled Shatter.
Speaker 2: I believe Peter Cushing is in that one as well. Okay?
Speaker 3: Is it about a man who has the power to shatter?
Speaker 2: It looks like it's kind of like crime or act
Speaker 2: crime action, maybe spy. I'm not sure. You know, it's
Speaker 2: one of those non horror Hammer films that perhaps gets
Speaker 2: re explored less in the modern era. I see, all right, Well,
Speaker 2: who's playing the title character of Count Dracula. Well, of
Speaker 2: course it's Christopher Lee, who lived nineteen twenty two through
Speaker 2: twenty fifteen. We've talked about Lee before on the show,
Speaker 2: as he's popped up in numerous films we've discussed already
Speaker 2: and is just going to keep popping up because he's
Speaker 2: an icon of horror. But here he is in one
Speaker 2: of his most iconic roles, the one that influenced his
Speaker 2: casting and presentation in late career hits like the Star
Speaker 2: Wars prequels like Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films.
Speaker 2: He was, I think, rather famously tired of playing Dracula
Speaker 2: at this point in his career, or at least tired
Speaker 2: of playing Dracula the hammer away. I'm to understand the
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy Jess Franco picture Count Dracula was more in
Speaker 2: line with what he wanted to do with the character
Speaker 2: at that point in his career. But still, again, it's
Speaker 2: a great screen presence, and one can only imagine that
Speaker 2: he enjoyed working once more with his friend and a
Speaker 2: long time co star of twenty two films, Peter Cushing.
Speaker 3: What is his Do you know what his take in
Speaker 3: the Franco count Dracula is. How's it different?
Speaker 2: I haven't seen it in its entirety yet, it's been
Speaker 2: It was actually a film I was considering for this
Speaker 2: month on Weird House because it's supposed to be, first
Speaker 2: of all, not as sleazy as other just Franco films,
Speaker 2: like it's a little more mainstream, has a great cast,
Speaker 2: you have like Kloskinski playing Renfield in it. But it's
Speaker 2: supposed to be more of like a sympathetic tragic Dracula.
Speaker 2: And I'm to understand it's the first Dracula film in
Speaker 2: which we initially meet an elderly Dracula who is then
Speaker 2: made young again through the consumption of blood.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, so this has many things in common with
Speaker 3: what would later happen in Bram Stoker's Dracula, directed by Coppola,
Speaker 3: which we were just talking about in our Core episodes
Speaker 3: earlier this week. Yeah. Yeah, that has the at least
Speaker 3: partially sympathetic Dracula. Adds in a love story for Dracula,
Speaker 3: which I want to emphasize is not in the book.
Speaker 3: Dracula is not in love. He does not romance in
Speaker 3: the book. He is just a demon and he's just bad.
Speaker 3: And that also has a Dracula who when Jonathan Harker
Speaker 3: first meets him in Transylvania, he looks very old and decrepit,
Speaker 3: but by the time he reaches London he is young
Speaker 3: and rejuvenated and old many So.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the Dracula that we get in Dracula eighty seventy
Speaker 2: two is certainly the demonic Dracula. In fact, they call
Speaker 2: him the demon vampire in the pro to the picture.
Speaker 2: He is just pure supernatural hunger. He has more in
Speaker 2: common with the Terminator than some of the more sympathetic
Speaker 2: film versions of Dracula that we've seen in this film's way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just a mean, nasty, vengeful, uncomplicated, demonic vampire. Now
Speaker 3: I mentioned this earlier, but just to get a little
Speaker 3: bit deeper into it. I feel like Christopher Lee is
Speaker 3: good in this movie. But one of my major complaints
Speaker 3: about the film is that it is reserved in the
Speaker 3: deployment of its key selling points, one of them being
Speaker 3: Christopher Lee. He's a kind of He's an ineffectual vampire.
Speaker 3: He doesn't have a lot of lines, and he has
Speaker 3: limited screen time, and that screen time is confined to
Speaker 3: basically just two locations. It feels almost like they were
Speaker 3: trying to make sure they could shoot all of his
Speaker 3: scenes on the same day and you could see how
Speaker 3: his like the fact that he never leaves the church
Speaker 3: he's resurrected in in the modern era unless he I
Speaker 3: don't think there's ever a scene of him going anywhere else.
Speaker 3: Is there. I can't think of one.
Speaker 2: I don't think so.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so he's just there, so you could say, well
Speaker 3: that that speaks to his power, right, so you know,
Speaker 3: he just stays there and he has his servants bringing
Speaker 3: him victims, so like he doesn't he's so powerful he
Speaker 3: doesn't even have to go out hunting. But I don't know.
Speaker 3: I feel like this movie would deliver more on its
Speaker 3: promise of Dracula nineteen seventy two AD if it had
Speaker 3: both more of Dracula on screen and going out and
Speaker 3: doing things in the world, and had more of the
Speaker 3: world of nineteen seventy two a D which it's it's
Speaker 3: also actually relatively tame on save for like one silly
Speaker 3: party scene. I think what they should have done is
Speaker 3: have Dracula go to the coffee bar. While it's like hoppin'
Speaker 3: and everybody's partying and he goes and I don't know,
Speaker 3: I guess he wouldn't dance, but he would at least
Speaker 3: like get encounter hippie culture there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like kill Nick Jagger in the street or something, right, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: I think just one sequence of him feasting on hippie
Speaker 2: blood elsewhere in London would have gone a long way.
Speaker 2: And if you were determined to have him not leave
Speaker 2: the churchyard, maybe just like one scene where he like
Speaker 2: looks out the window at night and like sees what's
Speaker 2: out there. You could even play it up like, oh man,
Speaker 2: if Dracula gets loose in nineteen seventy two London, it's
Speaker 2: all over, Like that's why he has to be stopped
Speaker 2: here before he has reached full feasting power again. But
Speaker 2: they don't really explore any of those ideas.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's easy to forget because the book itself
Speaker 3: is very old now, but I think one of the
Speaker 3: themes in the novel Dracula is the idea of some
Speaker 3: part of the old world coming into the New world.
Speaker 3: It's like, you know it that this you know figure
Speaker 3: from a decaying castle in the Carpathian Mountains out in
Speaker 3: the forest at the at the edge of Europe, as
Speaker 3: these people would have thought of it coming to the
Speaker 3: biggest metropolis that they knew of coming to modern London.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great point. So it's already built into
Speaker 2: the text quite a bit there that he's traveling across
Speaker 2: time and space to something new and yeah, and to
Speaker 2: come back to time after time. One of the great
Speaker 2: serious threads in that is that when Jack the Ripper
Speaker 2: arrives in the modern era, he's like, this place is great,
Speaker 2: Like I can really thrive here, like and you know,
Speaker 2: And of course that would come later that film, but
Speaker 2: a similar vibe I think would have gone a long
Speaker 2: way here. All right, So that's Dracula. But you can't
Speaker 2: have a hammer Dracula without a Hammer van Helsing. And
Speaker 2: that's where Peter Cushing comes in playing This is technically
Speaker 2: going to be a dual role because he starts off
Speaker 2: playing Lawrence van Helsing, but then we'll go on to
Speaker 2: play his descendant Lauramir van Helsing.
Speaker 3: I got some notes on these names. I'll come back
Speaker 3: to that.
Speaker 2: So Peter Cushing lived nineteen thirteen through nineteen ninety four.
Speaker 2: Again we've discussed Peter Cushing on the show before, and
Speaker 2: he's just going to continue to pop up because he was.
Speaker 2: He was, like Christopher Lee, just an iconic player in
Speaker 2: horror and sci fi cinema of the day. And I
Speaker 2: think he was even more prolific. He's one of those
Speaker 2: actors that everyone seems to have had nice things to
Speaker 2: say about, both personally and professionally. Just a consummant pro
Speaker 2: no matter what the material had him doing or saying,
Speaker 2: he always he always brings an air of dignity to
Speaker 2: most pictures. This movie is from the later stage of
Speaker 2: his career, after the death of his wife in nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy one. In fact, film just eight months after her passing.
Speaker 2: This is an event that apparently took a huge toll
Speaker 2: on him. In fact, he was apparently originally intended to
Speaker 2: be to play the father of the character Jessica van
Speaker 2: Helsing in this movie, but he had visibly aged so
Speaker 2: much since his wife's passing that they rewrote the script
Speaker 2: a little bit to make him be her grandfather. Oh okay,
Speaker 2: So you know, I think we might be forgiven for
Speaker 2: viewing films from this era of his career and detecting
Speaker 2: that loss and that distance in his screen presence, especially
Speaker 2: in the various examples of films that cast him as
Speaker 2: a man who's experienced a great loss. But you know
Speaker 2: that being said again, consummate professional. He does a solid
Speaker 2: job in this and I'm to understand he actually does
Speaker 2: his own stunts in the opening, which is wow, which
Speaker 2: concerns like a thunderous carriage based action sequence. So it's
Speaker 2: you know, it's not just like, oh, he you know,
Speaker 2: he fell out of a chair. No, like he's on
Speaker 2: like a moving carriage. It looks kind of dangerous, and
Speaker 2: apparently he does whatever stunts are required of him. There.
Speaker 3: Wow, I'm impressed. Well, I was going to say that,
Speaker 3: you know, I love Peter Cushing, but I'll admit sometimes
Speaker 3: he phones it in. You give him a break. He
Speaker 3: did a lot of movies and a lot of very
Speaker 3: similar movies, but strangely, I thought it seemed to me
Speaker 3: he was putting a lot of feeling into this one.
Speaker 3: This is not one of his best written roles, but
Speaker 3: he really exceeds what is required of him, and there
Speaker 3: was more emotion in this performance than I expected.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's not just about the man
Speaker 2: who must defeat the monster, but there's like someone in
Speaker 2: his life he's trying to protect as well, and not
Speaker 2: only protect from supernatural threats, but also just sort of
Speaker 2: ambiguous social threats as well that he's concerned about.
Speaker 3: Yeah, his protective care for his grandchild comes through as
Speaker 3: genuine emotion. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Now playing that grandchild, Jessica van Helsing is Stephanie
Speaker 2: Beacham More nineteen forty seven. This is our young, prematurely
Speaker 2: white haired descendant of the original Van Helsing. Stephanie Beacham
Speaker 2: is an English actor of stage, screen and television, with
Speaker 2: a very long and still very active career. She'd mostly
Speaker 2: done TV in stage at this point in her career,
Speaker 2: but had popped up in some films, including Roddy McDowell's
Speaker 2: tam Lynn from nineteen seventy and The Nightcomers from seventy one.
Speaker 2: After Dracula eight nineteen seventy two, she acted in seventy
Speaker 2: Threes and Now The Screaming Starts, seventy six's House of
Speaker 2: Mortal Sin and Schizo, and nineteen eighty one's Horror Planet.
Speaker 2: TV credits include forty nine episodes of The Colby's twenty
Speaker 2: three episodes of Dynasty, in which she plays Sable Colby
Speaker 2: I'm not sure how this works, but I'm guessing this
Speaker 2: is the same character. There's some sort of like I
Speaker 2: don't know if this was a spinoff of Dynasty or
Speaker 2: if like a character from the Colby's joined the cast
Speaker 2: of Dynasty. I'm not sure how soap operas really work.
Speaker 3: I don't know either, but.
Speaker 2: Anyway, it was apparently a big role for her. It's
Speaker 2: like the top thing that's mentioned diner on her IMDb page.
Speaker 2: But she was another STI she's like on the Love Boat.
Speaker 2: She apparently played Margaret Thatcher on an episode of Alfe Poles. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so there's that. I could not find a screenshot of it.
Speaker 2: I was really looking for it, could not find it.
Speaker 2: But she's also been on things like Star Trek, The
Speaker 2: Next Generation, SeaQuest, and Coronation Street.
Speaker 3: I think she's quite good in this though. She has
Speaker 3: the same issue that almost all of the teenagers have,
Speaker 3: which is that none of them seem like teenagers. I
Speaker 3: think I don't know how old they're supposed to be.
Speaker 3: I would guess they're supposed to be like, I don't know,
Speaker 3: eighteen to but they all come off as about thirty
Speaker 3: or at least late twenties.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think she was like twenty five at the time.
Speaker 3: Not really a problem. I just think it's funny when
Speaker 3: movies have these these groups of all extremely adult teenagers.
Speaker 2: All right. The next actor of note is Christopher Neim
Speaker 2: playing Johnny Alocard. This is the drugish occult enthusiast in
Speaker 2: the group of friends that we meet, the young Londoners.
Speaker 2: He cares about only one thing, and it is, of course,
Speaker 2: the resurrection of Dracula. He has a Dracula cultist.
Speaker 3: It's interesting that I think there are a lot of
Speaker 3: stories that where people become the servants of a satanic
Speaker 3: entity or demonic overlord so that they can pursue a
Speaker 3: party lifestyle and hedonistic pleasures. Like the powers they acquire
Speaker 3: by serving the demon lord give them the ability to
Speaker 3: party the way they want to. He's the other way around.
Speaker 3: Johnny Alucard parties in order to serve a demon lord,
Speaker 3: like he apparently only does the swing and hippie thing
Speaker 3: in order to attract a group of friends who can
Speaker 3: be brought as snacks to the vampire that he wants
Speaker 3: to resurrect.
Speaker 2: That's right, Johnny Alcard just wants to do Dracula stuff,
Speaker 2: that's all. He wants in life, and he's going to
Speaker 2: do whatever it takes to get there. So Johnny Alickhard
Speaker 2: is played by Christopher Niem born nineteen forty seven. He
Speaker 2: has a great look. He brings some great hungry energy
Speaker 2: to this role as a Dracula cultist and vampire wanna be.
Speaker 2: He kicked off his film career in the nineteen seventy
Speaker 2: environmental disaster film No Blade of Grass, followed by seventy
Speaker 2: one's Lust for a Vampire. This is These are small
Speaker 2: roles I'm to understand, but this role in Dracula eighty
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy two, so it to have been a big
Speaker 2: step up for him. He goes on from here to
Speaker 2: work steadily in all manner of pictures and TV shows,
Speaker 2: including thirty episodes of Days of Our Lives nineteen eighty seven,
Speaker 2: Steel Dawn, a really weird sounding nineteen eighty eight sci
Speaker 2: fi horror film titled Transformations. He did episodes of Dynasty
Speaker 2: episodes of Dallas. He pops up in the nineteen eighty
Speaker 2: nine James Bond film Licensed to Kill, in which he
Speaker 2: plays the agent that is sent to collect the rogue
Speaker 2: agent James Bond.
Speaker 3: Mmmm, yeah, okay, this is the one where Bond go
Speaker 3: he like quits I six and he goes on a
Speaker 3: mission of vengeance.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is the one where oh what's his name? Explodes?
Speaker 3: Robert Davey feeds his friend Felix to a shark and
Speaker 3: leaves a note saying he disagreed with something that aid him.
Speaker 3: And so James Bond goes to kill Robert Dovey.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and Anthony's er explodes, right, I think that's how
Speaker 2: it goes goes maybe?
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Anyway, Christopher nine was in a bunch of stuff. He
Speaker 2: pops up in Ghostbusters two playing a nitro d. He's
Speaker 2: in the hul Cogan films Suburban Commando from ninety one.
Speaker 2: He's in the nineteen ninety four Chuck Norris film hell Bound.
Speaker 2: He's in Species three from two thousand and four, and
Speaker 2: then goes on to be in the Prestige from two
Speaker 2: thousand and six. Just a bunch more all the way
Speaker 2: up through twenty nineteen.
Speaker 3: He's perfect in this. He's got a creepy, malevolent, froggy smile.
Speaker 3: He just he looks like he's up to no good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, dangerous youngster. They're very drugish.
Speaker 3: He also just gives strong like cult leader. It's like
Speaker 3: you see him and it's like, get this guy a
Speaker 3: cult stat.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right. We also have the law present in
Speaker 2: this film, investigating manner matters that turn out to be
Speaker 2: Dracula related. We have Inspector Murray played by Michael cole
Speaker 2: So of nineteen thirty four through two thousand and five.
Speaker 2: This is our chief law officer investigating a stream of
Speaker 2: strange murders in London. He's presented as a more progressive
Speaker 2: and sympathetic policeman, but at the same time he's totally
Speaker 2: down to invoke draconian drug laws in order to weed
Speaker 2: out dangerous hippies.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm gonna say no offense to Michael Coles. He
Speaker 3: does find. But this oddly shaggy and in some ways
Speaker 3: sympathetic detective character feels like it was meant for David Warner.
Speaker 2: Oh well, yeah, David Warner would have been good. I mean,
Speaker 2: David what You could cast David Warner in anything in
Speaker 2: this film and he would have nailed it. As for
Speaker 2: Michael Coles, he would reprise this role in seventy three's
Speaker 2: The Satanic Rights of Dracula. So I guess the investigation continues.
Speaker 2: His other credits include nineteen sixty five's doctor who in
Speaker 2: the Dalaks all right, we basically as far as the
Speaker 2: cast goes, there are just a couple other people of note.
Speaker 2: These are other members of the youth group. Well it's
Speaker 2: not a youth group. That makes it sound like it's
Speaker 2: church affiliated. These are some more of the swing in
Speaker 2: Londoners the young people, the first of which is the
Speaker 2: character Gaynor, played by Marcia A. Hunt born nineteen forty six.
Speaker 2: She's an American model, singer, actor, and a later author
Speaker 2: and editor. She only acted in eleven films, but they
Speaker 2: include such titles as nineteen eighty two as the Cinder
Speaker 2: It's Like a psychic, sort of Scanner esque flick, nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty three's Never Say Never Again, a Bond film, Howling two,
Speaker 2: Your Sister is Aware a Wolf, which is obviously part
Speaker 2: of the ups and downs of the Howling franchise her office.
Speaker 2: Her bibliography includes an autobiography, a memoir, and the nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety novel Joy. Her discography includes three albums from the
Speaker 2: nineteen seventies, and she was also famously in a relationship
Speaker 2: with Mick Jagger, and the two had a daughter together.
Speaker 3: Ah. She's one of the more friendly presences in the
Speaker 3: group of London hippies, though she tragically is eaten by Dracula,
Speaker 3: like several characters are.
Speaker 2: Another doomed character that fits the same description for the
Speaker 2: most part is Carolyn Monroe's Laura Bellows. We've talked about
Speaker 2: Monroe on the show before, because yeah, she was a
Speaker 2: pin up model and actress who stole many a seventies
Speaker 2: film nerds heart, with such genre appearances as The Spy
Speaker 2: Who Loved Me seventy seven, Maniac in nineteen eighty, Slaughter
Speaker 2: High in eighty six, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad earlier
Speaker 2: in seventy three, Captain Crono's Vampire Hunter, Another Hammer Picture
Speaker 2: from seventy four, at the Earth's Core in seventy six,
Speaker 2: and also Star Crash in seventy eight. She also has
Speaker 2: a just slight cameo as a picture of Doctor Phib's
Speaker 2: wife in nineteen seventy one's The Abominable Doctor Fibes.
Speaker 3: She is the main character in Star Crash, didn't she
Speaker 3: She's still a star so.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, she's right there, She's on the poster.
Speaker 3: Yeah. She is also eaten by Dracula in this movie,
Speaker 3: and her character is is just goga for demons. Ever
Speaker 3: since there's like the moment the Johnny Alucard brings up, hey,
Speaker 3: what if we did a black mass, She's like, yes, yes,
Speaker 3: do it now, let's go.
Speaker 2: It's true. Yeah, she's kind of presented as the Well,
Speaker 2: of course she was killed by Dracula because she was
Speaker 2: a bad hippie, so so yeah, what early victim here.
Speaker 3: But I don't understand, like, why is she so into demons.
Speaker 3: There are several characters in this movie who have a
Speaker 3: history of like investigating the occult, so like it's an
Speaker 3: established interest of theirs. She seems like she's never thought
Speaker 3: of it until Johnny Alukhard brings it up. But the
Speaker 3: moment he's like, let's summon the Prince of darkness, she
Speaker 3: can't think of anything else. It's like this is all
Speaker 3: I want now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I guess it's you know, I guess
Speaker 2: we're already thinking about it more deeply than anyone involved
Speaker 2: in the film, I think. But you know, maybe she's
Speaker 2: supposed to be just sort of like the shallow enthusiast
Speaker 2: of the occult that doesn't realize that there are, you know,
Speaker 2: in the world of this film, real threats involved in
Speaker 2: trying to summon up the spirit of a slain Dracula
Speaker 2: creature from the past, that sort of thing. All right,
Speaker 2: we're gonna skip over the rest of the youth in
Speaker 2: this film and just get right to the music. The
Speaker 2: music is by Michael Vickers born nineteen forty I a
Speaker 2: member of the nineteen sixties band Manfred Mann. I'm not
Speaker 2: familiar with, but the scorer and soundtrack for this film
Speaker 2: is widely available, and I have to say it's a
Speaker 2: lot of fun. Most of the score tracks are very jazzy,
Speaker 2: lots of blaring like horn or saxophone or whatever is
Speaker 2: Dracula and Van helsing chase each other around. But he
Speaker 2: also gives us a wonderful Black Mass track titled Devil's
Speaker 2: Circle Music. That is you see it being played on screen.
Speaker 2: It is the soundtrack to the Black Mass that is
Speaker 2: conducted in the picture, and it itself is a beautiful,
Speaker 2: creepy cacophony of satanic sounds. So part of me wishes
Speaker 2: the whole score for this movie sounded like that, But
Speaker 2: on the other hand, I really like the cheesy content
Speaker 2: of this film, so I'm glad that we have the
Speaker 2: blaring jazz present as well, all right, with all that
Speaker 2: behind us, Joe, take us to nineteen seventy two.
Speaker 3: All right, we'd be well, no, we don't start in
Speaker 3: nineteen seventy two.
Speaker 2: Oh oh, well, that's right. We start in eighteen seventy two.
Speaker 3: Right, that's right. I'll take you to eighteen seventy two.
Speaker 3: How about that. How about we start there? Okay, we
Speaker 3: begin with dead leaves blowing in the autumn wind. And
Speaker 3: I noticed I noticed in this opening sequence in some shots, Rob,
Speaker 3: I don't know if you saw this too. In some
Speaker 3: shots the trees are just packed with dense green foliage,
Speaker 3: and in other shots they have orange and yellow leaves
Speaker 3: and fewer of them, and then in a third kind
Speaker 3: of shot they're completely bare. I wonder why that is it.
Speaker 3: Could it be the different shots in this, like I
Speaker 3: don't know, minute long carriage Chase were shot at different
Speaker 3: months of the year. That seems unlikely, but I don't know.
Speaker 3: Maybe it's just different kind of trees or something. I
Speaker 3: was on guard for this because I saw, like at
Speaker 3: the the very first shot, orange leaves are blowing on
Speaker 3: the ground, but the trees in the background are fully green,
Speaker 3: and it reminded me of John Cars Halloween, which you
Speaker 3: may have never noticed this before, but it's like that.
Speaker 3: I think it was actually shot in the summer, even
Speaker 3: though it's supposed to take place in October in Illinois,
Speaker 3: so I think they had to like bring in bags
Speaker 3: of dead leaves to dress the you know, the sets.
Speaker 2: Reminds me of the neighborhood that while we both live in.
Speaker 2: Occasionally they're film productions, and there was that one. I
Speaker 2: think this was like in the summer where they were
Speaker 2: filming something for Halloween, and they they decorated the whole
Speaker 2: streak for Halloween, like like movie level Halloween decorations, and
Speaker 2: it was it was pretty fun. Like sometimes film productions
Speaker 2: can you know, they can get in your way and
Speaker 2: then you can be a little grumpy about them disrupting
Speaker 2: your morning commute or whatever. But that that film shoot,
Speaker 2: God bless it.
Speaker 3: Oh good lord. Yes, yeah, Halloween in July. Thank you,
Speaker 3: I'll take it. So, yeah, we get the leaves blowing.
Speaker 3: We see red calligraphy letters on the screen. This as
Speaker 3: a hammer production and it's that calligoriphy font that makes
Speaker 3: the word bathory look like bat Lord. A horse drawn
Speaker 3: carriage is racing along on a parkside pathway goes over
Speaker 3: a stone bridge under an archway of these dead tree limbs,
Speaker 3: and a narrator comes in. Narrator says, the year is
Speaker 3: eighteen seventy two, and the nightmare legend of Count Dracula
Speaker 3: extends its terror far beyond the mountains of Carpathia to
Speaker 3: the Victorian metropolis of London. Here in Hyde Park, the
Speaker 3: final confrontation between Lawrence van Helsing and his arch enemy,
Speaker 3: the demon vampire Dracula. Now, I told you I was
Speaker 3: going to come back to the name of van Helsing
Speaker 3: in this movie. You did hear that right? It is
Speaker 3: Lawrence van Helsing for some reason, I'm not sure what.
Speaker 3: This movie, and maybe at least one of the other
Speaker 3: Hammer Horror Draculas, calls this character Lawrence. Of course, in
Speaker 3: the novel, van Helsing's first name is Abraham. No offense
Speaker 3: to all of the wonderful Lawrences out there for what
Speaker 3: I'm about to say. But this name change is not great.
Speaker 3: A van Helsing, whose friends call him Larry, does not
Speaker 3: bring the same gravitas as Abraham. Hmm, yeah, yeah, So
Speaker 3: why the change? I don't know. Could it possibly have
Speaker 3: to do with intellectual property? That seems I don't know
Speaker 3: kind of.
Speaker 2: I mean, that would be the main reason to change
Speaker 2: up the name of a particular character. And of course
Speaker 2: historically we would have seen movements like that before concerning
Speaker 2: the Dracula property.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I mean, but it's called Dracula, so it
Speaker 3: would have to be something specific to that one character,
Speaker 3: Like they could use the last name and the rest
Speaker 3: of the plot and Dracula, but not Abraham. I don't know.
Speaker 3: It's confusing. So anyway, the movie opens with the ending
Speaker 3: of this other tale. We see Dracula and Van Helsing
Speaker 3: already in the middle of fighting to the death on
Speaker 3: the roof of this carriage as it races through Hyde Park.
Speaker 3: They're sort of wrestling. Dracula is choking Van Helsing, until
Speaker 3: suddenly the horn that's holding the horses to the carriage snaps.
Speaker 3: The horses run off. The carriage veers off the path
Speaker 3: and crashes into a tree. Van Helsing is thrown aside
Speaker 3: into the grass, and Dracula, when we see him stagger
Speaker 3: out from behind the carriage, is impaled on the spoke
Speaker 3: of a carriage wheel, an accidental stake through the heart.
Speaker 3: Dracula and Van Helsing fight a little bit more wild
Speaker 3: drac has a wheel stuck to him, so it's just
Speaker 3: kind of poking out of him. But eventually Dracula is defeated.
Speaker 3: Van Helsing kind of shoves the stake into the heart
Speaker 3: further and then he does the classic undead turbo rot.
Speaker 3: So Dracula collapses into a pile of bones and then
Speaker 3: that turns into ash and dust. By the riverside, Van
Speaker 3: Helsing also collapses dead.
Speaker 2: So at this point, the entire multifilm struggle between Professor
Speaker 2: van Helsing and Count Dracula ends in a vehicular accident,
Speaker 2: which I think would feel mighty underwhelming if this wered
Speaker 2: like the end. But this isn't the end, this is
Speaker 2: the beginning, so I guess we'll allow it. A freak
Speaker 2: accident takes both the demon vampire and his chief adversary,
Speaker 2: takes them both out of action.
Speaker 3: But wait a second, who's this creep back here watching
Speaker 3: everything go on? There is a young man observing the scene.
Speaker 3: He'd been following the carriage on horseback. He comes galloping
Speaker 3: in wearing a top hat, and he's a little guy
Speaker 3: with a scuzzy mutton chop sideburn set and a toad
Speaker 3: like grin, and he produces a glass vial and scoops
Speaker 3: up some of Dracula's ashes after he turbo rots, Van
Speaker 3: Helsing's just laying there dying. He ignores Van Helsing. He
Speaker 3: also pockets Dracula's special ring. It looks like it's made
Speaker 3: of silver, but I don't think that would make sense
Speaker 3: for Dracula. So it's some kind of pale precious metal ring.
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe pewter or something. Maybe he can wear pewter.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure Dracula's lead ring.
Speaker 2: I would fit right, he doesn't have to worry about lead.
Speaker 3: So we cut to a funeral scene after that, and
Speaker 3: it's all of Van Helsing's friends and family gathered in
Speaker 3: a churchyard where the Good Doctor's body is being committed
Speaker 3: to the earth. And it seems most of the mourners
Speaker 3: are variations on the Monopoly Man, shiny top hats, coats
Speaker 3: with tails, all that. It's mostly dudes at the funeral.
Speaker 2: And we're not introduced to any of them. We don't
Speaker 2: know who from the novel Dracula actually showed up at
Speaker 2: the man's funeral, Like, I feel like it would be
Speaker 2: a little bit insulting if Jonathan Harker didn't show up
Speaker 2: at Van Helsing's funeral, right.
Speaker 3: I mean, did they really know each other all that? Well,
Speaker 3: they just kind of got together for a work project
Speaker 3: one time.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, the way they work friends right, So.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, so oh another funny thing is the line
Speaker 3: we hear the priests say at Van Helsing's funeral. He's
Speaker 3: quoting the Bible, so we like come in and he's saying, man,
Speaker 3: that is born of woman hath but a short time
Speaker 3: to live and is full of misery. And I know
Speaker 3: that's the Bible, but man, is that really what people
Speaker 3: want to hear at a loved one's funeral. It's like,
Speaker 3: not only do we die soon, it's mostly bad until
Speaker 3: we get there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I don't. I don't want that RD at
Speaker 2: my funeral.
Speaker 3: Oh but a quick side note related to recent Core episodes.
Speaker 3: You know, the next line after that in the Book
Speaker 3: of Job. This is from Job chapter fourteen. After the
Speaker 3: you know it's a short time to live, full of misery,
Speaker 3: the next line is he cometh forth like a flower
Speaker 3: and is cut down. He fleeth also as a shadow
Speaker 3: and continueth not anyway, So that funeral is going on. Meanwhile,
Speaker 3: the creepy guy who collected Dracula's ring and ashes. He
Speaker 3: shows up at the funeral. He digs a hole in
Speaker 3: the ground just outside the churchyard, pours Dracula's ashes into
Speaker 3: the hole, and then drives a steak, the same steak
Speaker 3: that killed Dracula, into the soil above the hole. And
Speaker 3: then a marvelous transition, we get jet wipe jet We like,
Speaker 3: look up to the sky and there's a jetplane wipe
Speaker 3: and the funky music comes on, don't damn gawow, and
Speaker 3: the jet comes down and we see the title Dracula
Speaker 3: nineteen seventy two A d very good, very good use
Speaker 3: of a jetplane.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, it's like, bam, now it's modern times. Look at
Speaker 2: the jet plane. The music has shifted from old timey
Speaker 2: gothic horror movie to this is thoroughly modern, jazzy, funky number.
Speaker 2: And yeah, my only note here is that we're denied
Speaker 2: footage of Dracula flying first class. I mean, he's not
Speaker 2: actually supposed to be in that airplane. But you know, again,
Speaker 2: it's like you want. The movie seems to promise this
Speaker 2: idea of Dracula is in our world now, and it
Speaker 2: never quite gives us that.
Speaker 3: I think they should have done a pong wipe, So
Speaker 3: it's wiped to a screen of people playing the atari,
Speaker 3: but it's not pong, it's an airplane. And then what
Speaker 3: are they going to use to show We got to
Speaker 3: get like a nineteen seventy two montage, right, show us
Speaker 3: some footage of what it means for things to be modern?
Speaker 3: What does that mean in this film's conception, primarily traffic,
Speaker 3: So we're just seeing like complex highway exchanges teaming with
Speaker 3: cars set to saxophone and whaling guitar solos.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I guess that's all they really want to
Speaker 2: convey about the modern world. That it's busy, and you
Speaker 2: know that the world's fast, it's in a hurry. But meanwhile,
Speaker 2: Dracula is patient. Dracula is long lived and is crossing
Speaker 2: oceans of time to reach the year nineteen seventy two.
Speaker 3: And then from here we cut straight to a party scene. Now,
Speaker 3: this is the scene where I think they were the
Speaker 3: movie was trying to pack in all of its modern
Speaker 3: debauchery into like one five to seven minute sequence.
Speaker 2: That's right with But their hippies are not like all,
Speaker 2: is it not like we're dealing with a bunch of
Speaker 2: sort of grind hausey, like evil hippies or anything. These
Speaker 2: are all like, for the most part, likable, fun goofy kids. Again,
Speaker 2: I think most of them are at least in their
Speaker 2: mid twenties, but still goofy kids having a good time
Speaker 2: enjoying the musical stylings of Stone Ground.
Speaker 3: Stone Ground that's the name of the band they are playing.
Speaker 3: Let's see how do so. The scene is like hippies
Speaker 3: versus more monopoly men, but monopoly men from nineteen seventy
Speaker 3: two instead of eighteen seventy two. This party is taking
Speaker 3: place at an elegantly decorated apartment or flat belonging to
Speaker 3: rich people, full of breakable antiques. There is a buffet
Speaker 3: table set up with champagne and ice buckets and a
Speaker 3: bunch of food. But I paused it. Almost all the
Speaker 3: food appears to be fruit. I guess they thought we
Speaker 3: wouldn't look too close, or maybe they just really like fruit. Also,
Speaker 3: several hippies are making out underneath the buffet table. The
Speaker 3: band Stone Ground is playing. In the living room. There
Speaker 3: are go go dancers on top of the piano and
Speaker 3: on the sofa table. Hippies are dancing, presumably doing drugs,
Speaker 3: though I don't think we see any drugs being done
Speaker 3: and getting up to sexual behavior, and all of the rich,
Speaker 3: posh people are scandalized.
Speaker 2: I can't stress enough that stone Ground as a band
Speaker 2: looks like what might happen if you took the Muppet
Speaker 2: Show band and portrayed them as human beings. Yes, they're
Speaker 2: like a human Muppet Show band.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, Or like Fraggles, like the Fragle band.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Michael Wheldon wrote in his review quote, A party
Speaker 2: sequence with the American band stone Ground is a real
Speaker 2: low point. Oh come on, I would disagree, But then again,
Speaker 2: i'm you know, we I think he was writing this
Speaker 2: a little closer to the original release time. I would
Speaker 2: say that it's a goofy good time that also advances
Speaker 2: the plot somewhat introduces us to a key character, which
Speaker 2: we'll get to in just a second. I think you
Speaker 2: can say, well, perhaps there are some seventies bands that
Speaker 2: would have been better suited to this film than stone Ground.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't say I love the music, but they do
Speaker 2: appear to have been a real band and all, like
Speaker 2: they don't just exist in this film. South Valentino was
Speaker 2: the singer noted for his earlier work in the sixties
Speaker 2: group the bo Brummels. They did the song just a
Speaker 2: little and I think they had another hit, and various
Speaker 2: members of Stone Ground went on to other things.
Speaker 3: One of the songs they play at this party is
Speaker 3: it's just very generic lyrical content. It's like, oh yeah,
Speaker 3: come on or something. But the other song is called
Speaker 3: Alligator Man, and all of the lyrics are about how
Speaker 3: like I'm just a by you man. You know you
Speaker 3: can find me and the by you because that's all
Speaker 3: I do. I swim in the water. I'm an alligator man.
Speaker 3: I think he says I come from an alligator clan,
Speaker 3: and I was just looking at the scene, like these
Speaker 3: are not alligator men, if anything, these are lamprey men.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean that's it's kind of a credence vibe
Speaker 2: right where it's like, perhaps not authentic swamp music.
Speaker 3: Oh I don't know, I go credence, they're out. They're
Speaker 3: alligatorman to me, John Fogerty, Yeah, come on, he's an
Speaker 3: alligator man.
Speaker 2: The credence was great, But did they come from an
Speaker 2: actual swamp.
Speaker 3: I don't know. Maybe I've never looked into it.
Speaker 2: If they don't have a swamp thing origin story, then
Speaker 2: I'm gonna say it's it's it's a bit of an act,
Speaker 2: but it's a fun act. I always like, I like
Speaker 2: love Credence when I was younger.
Speaker 3: I still love Credence. Wait, okay, but in the middle
Speaker 3: of this whole scene, we got to explain this. So
Speaker 3: the hippies are dancing, the band is playing, all the
Speaker 3: rich people are are horribly offended. And in the middle
Speaker 3: of the scene, hey, it's that same reptilian creep that
Speaker 3: scooped up Dracula's ashes one hundred years ago. If anybody's
Speaker 3: an alligator, man, it's him.
Speaker 2: He.
Speaker 3: You know, he's like got these creepy eyes. He's staring
Speaker 3: at everybody. Uh. And I don't know if he has
Speaker 3: like not aged since one hundred years ago, or if
Speaker 3: this is supposed to be a descendant of that other guy.
Speaker 3: Either way, it's the exact same dude. It looks exactly
Speaker 3: the same, except he is now. I don't know. He's
Speaker 3: dressed sort of for the era. He's wearing a frilly
Speaker 3: pirate shirt, a burgundy velvet suit, and a black, wide
Speaker 3: brimmed fedora. So cool.
Speaker 2: I think he's supposed to be a descendant because Dracula
Speaker 2: later says something to him about his bloodline.
Speaker 3: Ah, that would make sense.
Speaker 2: So like there's been a long line of Dracula enthusiasts,
Speaker 2: some of whom never got to meet Dracula, which would
Speaker 2: be kind of a bummer, right. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're just you know, bridging the gap between generations.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Oh, and also we learned that his name is Johnny
Speaker 3: Alucard Smooth.
Speaker 2: Ah, we're not going to spoil We're not going to
Speaker 2: spoil it yet. We're not going to tell you what
Speaker 2: alo card means.
Speaker 3: Oh what, We're not going to tell you what it
Speaker 3: is spelled backwards. This is their kingdom. Yeah, Johnny Nilbog
Speaker 3: here at the party. He's gazing out from under the
Speaker 3: brim of his fedora while everybody else has a good time.
Speaker 3: He doesn't look like he's having a good time. He's
Speaker 3: just sitting there watching with no ex expression. Of course,
Speaker 3: all of the fancy rich people are mortified. They're baffled
Speaker 3: about how all of these disgusting partygoers ended up in
Speaker 3: their flat. This old lady who's kind of a little
Speaker 3: bit Angela Lansbury ish, she's like, what you know to
Speaker 3: her son, She's like, why did you invite all of
Speaker 3: these monsters, and he says, I didn't they're not my friends.
Speaker 3: All I did was to invite the stone a Ground.
Speaker 3: But that just left me more confused. I'm like, why
Speaker 3: did he invite the stone Ground? He invited this band?
Speaker 2: Well, because stone Ground is just a household name. Stone
Speaker 2: Ground appeals to audiences of all ages, the old, the young,
Speaker 2: the hip, the square. Everyone loves stone Ground. That's one
Speaker 2: of the film's early key messages.
Speaker 3: I understand now, yes, Oh, but there's one thing in
Speaker 3: this party scene that I think does not make sense
Speaker 3: and did not work at all. It's the bit about
Speaker 3: timing how many minutes until the police arrive. So the
Speaker 3: guy who invited the stone Ground goes and calls the
Speaker 3: po to get all the hippies out of his apartment,
Speaker 3: and then the hippie the friends all start being like, oh,
Speaker 3: the fuzz will be here in four minutes. No, it'll
Speaker 3: be six minutes, it'll be three and a half minutes,
Speaker 3: eight minutes. And they're arguing with each other, and they
Speaker 3: explained that they have a running practice where I guess
Speaker 3: they party somewhere where they're unwanted until the minute before
Speaker 3: the police arrive, and then they leave and it's not
Speaker 3: really funny, and it doesn't really make sense. It sort
Speaker 3: of lacks very similitude, but the bit just keeps going on.
Speaker 2: It's a rather different relationship between hippies and law enforcement
Speaker 2: in this film versus certainly reality. But also I'm reminded
Speaker 2: of the Living Dead of the Manchester Morgue, where you know,
Speaker 2: it's firmly established that the man hates hippies, that law
Speaker 2: enforcement just despises them, whereas in this film it's like, ah,
Speaker 2: they're fun loving. It's a fun loving competition, you know.
Speaker 2: It's like, oh, you got me today, hippies, we'll get
Speaker 2: you tomorrow. That sort of thing.
Speaker 3: And in the spirit of that sort of teasingness, like
Speaker 3: when the police arrived to bust up the party, oh
Speaker 3: they discovered the hippies making out underneath the buffet table,
Speaker 3: and one of the hippies just says to the cop,
Speaker 3: peace man, and the cop smiles. But also there's a
Speaker 3: thing where when Johnny Alucard is about to leave the apartment,
Speaker 3: he takes the time to stop and torture the old
Speaker 3: lady about breaking her priceless antiques. Like he picks up
Speaker 3: this ceramic figurine and is tossing it hand to hand,
Speaker 3: and then just when she thinks, you know, he's setting
Speaker 3: it safely down on the table, he tips it over
Speaker 3: and it breaks on the floor.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, he's a chaotic youth. He doesn't care about anything.
Speaker 3: But so they split from the party. They go to
Speaker 3: their favorite coffee shop except is it daytime?
Speaker 5: Now?
Speaker 3: I'm a little confused about the timeline. But they go
Speaker 3: to their favorite coffee shop, and the coffee shop is
Speaker 3: called cavern in this place? Is I wish I could
Speaker 3: go there?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I kind of have to assume that what we
Speaker 2: see of the interiors as a set. But it's a
Speaker 2: great looking set. We got the like splashes of tile
Speaker 2: and all sorts of cool purple lighting. Like it just
Speaker 2: looks too cool to be a real space. But I
Speaker 2: could be wrong on that. And then they order up
Speaker 2: what at first I thought was like bowls of soup
Speaker 2: and coca colas. But I think this is supposed to
Speaker 2: be coffee and or tea plus coca colas.
Speaker 3: I think there are coca colas in glass bottles. But yes,
Speaker 3: the souper bowls are coffee cups. I think. Okay, they're
Speaker 3: just very wide and shallow for some reason. Oh, and
Speaker 3: I made a note that cavern is right next to
Speaker 3: a store called Chelsea Mail m al E. I don't know,
Speaker 3: maybe that's clothing. I don't know. Anyway, the coffee ass
Speaker 3: the hippies sit in a secluded booth and Johnny Alucard
Speaker 3: talks about how everything's just boring. I'm sick of it all.
Speaker 3: It's all stale. We've got to find a new way
Speaker 3: to get our kicks. And he says, I want some
Speaker 3: thing new yet as old as time. And he's got
Speaker 3: an idea. They all want to hear what his idea is.
Speaker 3: He leans forward and he says, a date with the Devil,
Speaker 3: a bachanal with Beelzebub. So they think he's joking around
Speaker 3: at first, Oh, you're just Josh and Johnny Alucard a haha,
Speaker 3: Oija board spirit mediums that stuff's a bunch of funny nonsense.
Speaker 3: But Johnny Alucard is not joking. He's serious. He says,
Speaker 3: don't knock it unless you've tried it. And then Jessica,
Speaker 3: the most intelligent and level headed of the group, comments, well,
Speaker 3: they do say it's dangerous. But at the other side
Speaker 3: of the table, Carolyn Monroe as Laura is here like, yes, yes, devil,
Speaker 3: take me to the devil now. So everybody eventually agrees,
Speaker 3: last of all and reluctantly Jessica, but they're all in.
Speaker 3: They're going to go to an abandoned London church later
Speaker 3: tonight at midnight to summon Satan. I don't know. I
Speaker 3: guess that's just how you have fun.
Speaker 2: This may come later, but I did like the way
Speaker 2: they set up, how various members of the friends group
Speaker 2: are going along with this, where I think Jessica's boyfriend
Speaker 2: is like this is you know, it's like, yeah, Johnny's
Speaker 2: enthusiastic about it, but you know what's gonna happen. We're
Speaker 2: gonna show up, somebody's gonna get out of guitar. I'm
Speaker 2: gonna have some food and some drinks. It's like it's
Speaker 2: just gonna be more or less like any other hang
Speaker 2: we do. It's just Johnny's gonna read some weird stuff beforehand.
Speaker 3: Yes, he said there will. It'll just be beer, food,
Speaker 3: guitar and loving in the end. But before we get
Speaker 3: to the summoning of Satan, we see a few little
Speaker 3: there's some interludes. First of all, we see Johnny Alucard
Speaker 3: head home to his sweet flat, which his flat seems
Speaker 3: very cool. It's like well decorated. I don't know, it
Speaker 3: doesn't have that bachelor quality to it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I know what you mean. It feels like
Speaker 2: this is more space and it's in better shape than
Speaker 2: Johnny should have access to. He should have more of
Speaker 2: a like a little hovel with Dracula posters on the walls.
Speaker 2: Turns out the good guys are the ones with Dracula posters.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So he goes to his house
Speaker 3: and he opens up a velvet box and inside it's
Speaker 3: the ring, Yes, Dracula's ring, the one we saw the
Speaker 3: guy who looks exactly like Johnny take off of Dracula's
Speaker 3: corpse earlier on and the vial of ashes, so he's
Speaker 3: got him. We also follow Jessica home and this is
Speaker 3: where we learn that she is Jessica van Helsing and
Speaker 3: her grandfather who she lives with, is Professor Lorimer van
Speaker 3: Helsing also played by Peter Cushing, again a descendant of
Speaker 3: Larry from the prologue, and grandfather Van Helsing is an
Speaker 3: expert on the occult. He has consulted with the police
Speaker 3: before to solve cases of ritual cult murder, and he
Speaker 3: comes into office catches his granddaughter reading his book, which
Speaker 3: is called the Treatise on Black mass. He says, Jessica,
Speaker 3: this is not a subject to mess around with. These
Speaker 3: are scientific works. But she mocks it. She says, you know,
Speaker 3: you can buy that kind of book in any shop
Speaker 3: in soho quote. It's all kinky, you know, she says,
Speaker 3: it's hobgoblins, black magic, etc. So she thinks it's all nonsense,
Speaker 3: has no interest whatsoever in the occult, and in fact
Speaker 3: seems to think it's it's not even superficially interesting. She
Speaker 3: thinks that she can't bring her friends over to this
Speaker 3: place or to meet him because it would be interminably boring.
Speaker 3: But wait a minute, Jessica, don't you know that your
Speaker 3: friends are obsessed with summoning the devil? Like they just
Speaker 3: expressed this extreme interest in the occult, And here she
Speaker 3: is like, I can't My friends could never find out
Speaker 3: that you're an expert on the occult. It would be
Speaker 3: so embarrassing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Jessica is a bit of a brat, and I
Speaker 2: think intentional. So like he has to politely move her
Speaker 2: feet off of his desk when he comes in and
Speaker 2: finds her reading the Book of the Occult. But at
Speaker 2: the same time, it's that they do a great job
Speaker 2: letting us know that, yeah, he really cares about her,
Speaker 2: and she really cares about him. But there is this,
Speaker 2: you know, some awkward generational stuff where you know, the
Speaker 2: stuff Grandpa's into is just lame, and yeah, she's kind
Speaker 2: of blind to the fact that there is this strong
Speaker 2: connection between what's about to happen in her friend group
Speaker 2: and the kind of stuff that grandpa actually knows quite
Speaker 2: a bit about.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he patiently explains that, you know, our family has
Speaker 3: a legacy of research into the occult, and she's just like,
Speaker 3: it's not my bag. Baby.
Speaker 2: It's like the difference between a friend saying like, hey,
Speaker 2: I have this Doobie Brother's album and then your grandpa's saying, hey,
Speaker 2: I've got Doobie Brothers albums too. Like, it's not fair
Speaker 2: that grandpa is considered lame because he has this album
Speaker 2: and your friend has a pass because he just discovered it.
Speaker 3: But that is how it works, no accounting for the
Speaker 3: social influences on taste formation anyway. Oh but also he's like, hey,
Speaker 3: what if I was to get to meet your friends
Speaker 3: you know, I wonder who these people you hang out
Speaker 3: with all the time, who are they? And she's like, Uh,
Speaker 3: you're never going to meet them because this place is
Speaker 3: boring and dusty and old, and you're an expert on
Speaker 3: the occult, so you will not meet them. But she
Speaker 3: tries to reassure him by saying she has never dropped acid,
Speaker 3: she is not shooting up, and she says she is
Speaker 3: not sleeping with anyone just yet, so he has no
Speaker 3: reason to worry. She is into nothing wrong. And then
Speaker 3: she goes to meet her friends at the deconsecrated church
Speaker 3: to raise the devil. Yep, so this black Mass. What
Speaker 3: can we describe about the scene? Well, first of all,
Speaker 3: there's a thing about the tombstone. On the outside, she
Speaker 3: and her boyfriend Bob are talking before they go into
Speaker 3: the church. They're waiting to meet everybody, and they stumble
Speaker 3: across the tombstone of her ancestor, Lawrence van Helsing, who
Speaker 3: died one hundred years ago to this day.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which they initially think, oh, this is one of
Speaker 2: Johnny's jokes. This is not funny. They get a little
Speaker 2: disturbed over this.
Speaker 3: It's one of Johnny's jokes. He had a fake tombstone
Speaker 3: made and put in this churchyard.
Speaker 2: I don't know, you know, they're just they're they're trying
Speaker 2: to figure it out. The other thing I would say
Speaker 2: is is that this, this abandoned church is just is
Speaker 2: a great set. It's a great like Gothic setting for
Speaker 2: what is inevitably going to be the resurrection of Count Dracula.
Speaker 3: That's right. So Johnny Alucard is there. He's wearing an
Speaker 3: all black robe. He has everybody sit in a circle
Speaker 3: and listen to music. He says, no fooling around, this
Speaker 3: is for real. And the tape he plays sounds kind
Speaker 3: of like the drum solo in Inegata Davida, which is
Speaker 3: a thumbs up for me. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It has this kind of like noisy, grimy quality
Speaker 2: to it, which I quite like. And again you can
Speaker 2: hear this track is included on the soundtrack and score
Speaker 2: along with those stone ground tracks if you need to
Speaker 2: listen to those.
Speaker 3: That must provide an odd contrast. But he's really telling
Speaker 3: them to get into it. He says, dig the music, kids,
Speaker 3: let it flow into you. Give yourself up to the music.
Speaker 3: And this reminds me of Christian tracts that I have
Speaker 3: read genuinely espousing the idea that rock music will will
Speaker 3: allow a demon to possess your soul.
Speaker 2: Yep, yep.
Speaker 3: Johnny Alucard seems to agree with that point of view,
Speaker 3: and then he starts. He starts name and demons. You know,
Speaker 3: he says, I call upon Address the Grand Marquis of Hell.
Speaker 3: He says, Marquis, a provoker of discords, and upon ron Way,
Speaker 3: demon of forbidden knowledge, and upon Behemoth, the arch devil
Speaker 3: of black delights. I call upon as Modius, the Destroyer
Speaker 3: and Astroth, friend of all the great lords of Hades.
Speaker 3: I demand an audience with his Satanic majesty. And he
Speaker 3: goes on and on names like fifteen more demons, and
Speaker 3: ends with Count Dracula, which, even in the context of
Speaker 3: the movie, for some reason, it just kind of sounds
Speaker 3: funny in this list of I don't know, biblical or
Speaker 3: at least like apocryphal or hermetic kind of entities.
Speaker 2: Maybe, But at the same time, I don't know. We've
Speaker 2: talked already on the show. I think in Listener Mail
Speaker 2: episodes about Marvel's Dracula and how in the Marvel Comics universe,
Speaker 2: Dracula will occasionally have interactions with the likes of doctor Doom,
Speaker 2: so you know, Draculas can can hang out with Doctor
Speaker 2: Doom on the moon. Then I feel like it's it's
Speaker 2: equally okay that his name is mentioned in the same
Speaker 2: prayer as these various other dark and powerful demon lords.
Speaker 3: So he says all these demons, but then he calls
Speaker 3: the name of Jessica van helsing, she's right here in
Speaker 3: the room with us. She's here listening to the music.
Speaker 3: She's digging the music as instructed. And he says that
Speaker 3: the demons have chosen her, but she is afraid, so
Speaker 3: she says no, she's not going to join him up
Speaker 3: at the altar for whatever comes next. But somebody's ready,
Speaker 3: somebody wants to be to go to the altar, and
Speaker 3: it's Laura played by care Ellen Monroe. She's extremely jealous.
Speaker 3: She's like, no, me, me, me, me me, And so
Speaker 3: it looks like it's gonna be Laura instead for whatever
Speaker 3: this ritual will be. He so she goes up, lies
Speaker 3: down on the altar and Johnny Alukard cuts his hand,
Speaker 3: bleeds into a grail full of Dracula's ashes and then
Speaker 3: pours them out on her and it gets really thick
Speaker 3: and frothy, and this is disgusting. She's now covered in
Speaker 3: ashy blood. Everybody gets freaked out and runs away except
Speaker 3: for Johnny and Laura. And of course the ritual works it,
Speaker 3: you know, it resurrects Dracula from the earth where his
Speaker 3: ashes were buried one hundred years before. And then Dracula
Speaker 3: is shown shot from below, so we're looking up at
Speaker 3: him like he is the statue of liberty but a vampire,
Speaker 3: and he's surrounded by smoke and quite regal in his well,
Speaker 3: as Johnny said in his Satanic majesty, and.
Speaker 2: I thought this is pretty effective. Like at this point,
Speaker 2: I'm really digging, like, oh yeah, this is Dracula, this
Speaker 2: is the real deal. You've summoned him, and like this
Speaker 2: is an incredibly dangerous situation for everybody involved.
Speaker 3: But this is the part I mentioned earlier where he
Speaker 3: is right off the bat, extremely high handed with Johnny.
Speaker 3: Johnny says, master, I did it. I summoned you, and
Speaker 3: Dracula just kind of scowls at him and says it
Speaker 3: was my will and then holds out the ring for
Speaker 3: him to kiss.
Speaker 2: Well, he's not going to suffer any even if this
Speaker 2: is like, you know, a bloodline of Toadies that are
Speaker 2: supposed to look after Dracula's interest and raise him from
Speaker 2: the grave. Like, he's not going to suffer a wizard
Speaker 2: trying to pull one over him here. He's going to
Speaker 2: establish right from the top that Dracula is the guy.
Speaker 3: In charge, right. So he goes into the church, Laura
Speaker 3: is still hanging out there. He's like, I guess I'll
Speaker 3: drink her blood, and he does, and meanwhile Johnny is
Speaker 3: looking on biting his knuckle like I wish that was me.
Speaker 3: And at first I thought he was thinking like, oh,
Speaker 3: I wish that was me drinking her blood, but then
Speaker 3: I realized, no, I think he's like, I wish that
Speaker 3: was me getting my blood drank.
Speaker 2: Because that's what he ultimately wants. He wants the kiss
Speaker 2: of cursed immortality.
Speaker 3: So the next day, Laura's body is found by kids
Speaker 3: playing in a construction area. There's sort of the kids
Speaker 3: from the Spirit of Dark and Lonely Waters commercial.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just sort of wild, unparented seventies children running around
Speaker 2: finding dead bodies in the in the rubble. I mean,
Speaker 2: this is just how it went. I was born in
Speaker 2: seventies as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's go climb on that rebar. The police show up.
Speaker 3: They open a murder investigation and it is led by
Speaker 3: Inspector Murray. This is the detective we talked about earlier.
Speaker 3: Inspector Murray in turn consults with Laura Mr van Helsing.
Speaker 3: I think they have a pre existing relationship because Van
Speaker 3: Helsing knows all about weird occult murders, and the detective
Speaker 3: then reveals that the murder is connected to his granddaughter Jessica,
Speaker 3: because Laura was part of her friend group.
Speaker 2: They do acknowledge at one point, or Inspector Murray does
Speaker 2: talking with somebody else, I think one of the other
Speaker 2: their police investigators. He's like, well, you know, here in
Speaker 2: the UK, we don't really have cult murders like they
Speaker 2: do in America. You know, they're not They're not as
Speaker 2: complicated as that and as heavy. We we have some
Speaker 2: cult murders, but it's you know, it's it's it's more
Speaker 2: British here.
Speaker 3: So there is a an investigation portion of the movie
Speaker 3: in the middle here that had one scene that had
Speaker 3: Rachel and me rolling. It was the the Alu card
Speaker 3: scene where man, they really they don't skip over anything.
Speaker 3: They let you see the whole thing.
Speaker 2: Come together, spoil it for us, Joe, tell everybody what
Speaker 2: Alo card means well.
Speaker 3: So that you see, like Peter Cushing there with a
Speaker 3: card and he has written Dracula out on this piece
Speaker 3: of paper, and then he's drawing lines from the letters
Speaker 3: in Alu card to the letters in Dracula and they
Speaker 3: all cross over. And he's like, it's it's Dracula spelt backwards.
Speaker 2: The the Dracula cipher right or Alo card cipher, as
Speaker 2: if he just solved like a really complex puzzle here, uh,
Speaker 2: when it's just so obvious in the page. But again,
Speaker 2: it just shows you how great Peter Cushing is. Such
Speaker 2: a stupid scene, but he sells it. He he patiently
Speaker 2: brings dignity to the scene.
Speaker 3: He draws. He doesn't just like write out Alu card
Speaker 3: and then look at he like draws all the lines.
Speaker 3: He does every letter.
Speaker 2: You know, he's checking his work. And I guess we
Speaker 2: have to remember at this point in in Hammer canon anyway,
Speaker 2: nobody had had solved the Dracula cipher yet they didn't
Speaker 2: know what this meant, and so we had to watch
Speaker 2: him do it in real time.
Speaker 3: That's true. It's like one of those math conjectures you know,
Speaker 3: remains unproven.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm. But this is this is also good parenting
Speaker 2: slash grand parenting tip uh that we're seeing here. Find
Speaker 2: out who your your your your your child or your
Speaker 2: grandchild's friends are. Write their names on a sheet of
Speaker 2: paper and just check and see if any of their
Speaker 2: first or last name happens to be Dracula spelled backwards.
Speaker 3: I just knew I shouldn't have let my child play
Speaker 3: with eoj nif.
Speaker 5: Ok.
Speaker 2: Sorry, I don't have any paper out, Joe. I can't
Speaker 2: fact check that one to make sure that's okay.
Speaker 3: Well, then you must be one of the idiots infurio. Okay,
Speaker 3: So what happens to that? So maybe I'm gonna skip
Speaker 3: more lightly over some of the plot points that follow,
Speaker 3: but one sequence is Dracula. He really wants to eat
Speaker 3: Jessica van Helsing. Actually, I think he wants to turn
Speaker 3: her into a vampire right to really just fully defile
Speaker 3: the name of Van Helsing. He wants to not just
Speaker 3: kill the end of the van Helsing line, but make
Speaker 3: her a servant of the devil.
Speaker 2: That's right, that's his evil plot for revenge here.
Speaker 3: So the way they're going to make that happen is
Speaker 3: Johnny Alucard. Does he invite Jessica van Helsing to go
Speaker 3: to the Jazz Spectacular with him?
Speaker 2: Yeah, He's like, I got tickets to the Jazz Spectacular,
Speaker 2: want to come? And she's like, uh no, no, no,
Speaker 2: thank you of doing something else. And then Gaynor's like, hey,
Speaker 2: I'm looking to go to a concert.
Speaker 3: What's he gonna do? Well, he figures out I can
Speaker 3: at least feed Gayner to Dracula.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but this this doesn't go over well with Dracula
Speaker 2: because Dracula, rightfully so is like, you, this is not
Speaker 2: what I charged you with. We have a specific plan
Speaker 2: for vengeance here. I will drink her blood and kill her,
Speaker 2: but you need to bring me the descendant of Van Helsing.
Speaker 2: And then but Johnny Alickhart is like, well, you haven't
Speaker 2: given me any powers, and he basically does kind of
Speaker 2: like a there's like a labor standoff, yes here in
Speaker 2: the film, and Dracula caves. He's like, all right, I'll
Speaker 2: give you the powers.
Speaker 3: So he bites him, turns Johnny Olichard into a vampire.
Speaker 3: And then Johnny ali Cart actually before he gets on
Speaker 3: with the business of you know, of getting Jessica van Helsing.
Speaker 3: He just goes out and gets a snack for and
Speaker 3: he like finds a lady in a laundromat and eats her.
Speaker 2: Yep, yep, just starts committing random vampire murders.
Speaker 3: But at some point Jessica's boyfriend, Bob, he comes to
Speaker 3: get her at her house. Now she's been warned about
Speaker 3: things at this point by her her grandfather Van Helsing,
Speaker 3: but Bob comes and says I think he says, oh,
Speaker 3: you know, your grandfather and the police are at the cavern.
Speaker 3: They're interviewing everybody and you need to come there now.
Speaker 3: Was that the story? I think it was.
Speaker 2: I believe so.
Speaker 3: Yes, And in the scene he strangely has a ben
Speaker 3: Dan tied around his neck. Yep, did you see this
Speaker 3: one coming?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yep.
Speaker 3: So he does take her to the cavern the coffee shop,
Speaker 3: but it's not the uh, it's not the good guys,
Speaker 3: it's the bad guys.
Speaker 2: That's right. It's a game of cat and mouse here
Speaker 2: between the Van Helsings and House Dracula.
Speaker 3: So eventually Jessica is taken to the deconsecrated church I
Speaker 3: think it's Saint Bartholf's and Dracula hip tizes her but
Speaker 3: doesn't vamp her yet. I think he's waiting for like
Speaker 3: the big midnight ritual or something. In the meantime, we
Speaker 3: get van Helsing on the case. He's trying to he's
Speaker 3: trying to find out how to rescue his granddaughter, and
Speaker 3: he ends up going to Johnny Alukard's house where they
Speaker 3: have a battle. It is Van Helsing versus a vampire,
Speaker 3: not Dracula yet, but the vamp, the sort of young vamp.
Speaker 3: And I thought this was a good battle. I like
Speaker 3: this scene.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean, to be fair, this is the
Speaker 2: first vampire that this Van Helsing has ever battled. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And they do a good job, yeah, of making it
Speaker 2: a little a little unexpected, Like, for instance, earlier in
Speaker 2: the film, there's a little foreshadowing where they remind us
Speaker 2: that there's an often ignored bit of vampire lore that
Speaker 2: says that moving water or moving fresh water. I think
Speaker 2: they're running water film clear, running running water, will you know,
Speaker 2: destabilize them or slay them or something. So I wonder
Speaker 2: if that'll come into play here.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, I think he says that at the police
Speaker 3: station or something. He's listing all of the things that
Speaker 3: will harmer won't harm a vampire. Some of it's just superstition,
Speaker 3: but yeah, clear running water and a cross in a
Speaker 3: bible that'll do it. So there's a great move he
Speaker 3: has here where Johnny ali Card like the sun is
Speaker 3: rising in the window and he's trapped. He's got to
Speaker 3: get back to his coffin so he can rest during
Speaker 3: the daylight. But then Peter Cushing throws a bible into
Speaker 3: his coffin. He's like, oh got.
Speaker 2: You now, Oh yeah, sleep on that. And this is
Speaker 2: like a full size one too. It's not one of
Speaker 2: those little pocket ones that you know, you could just
Speaker 2: maybe like sleep around, but no, no, there's no sleeping
Speaker 2: in that coffin without laying on that bible.
Speaker 3: It's ruined, right, that's a thunk bible. So they battle,
Speaker 3: but eventually Johnny Alucard falls into the shower. The water
Speaker 3: starts running and this destroys him. Like the water's running
Speaker 3: over him and he's screaming. He's like, sturn it off,
Speaker 3: turn it off, and Van Helsing's like, where is Jessic?
Speaker 3: But he won't say. He's just getting obliterated by water?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Is it the best vampire death in cinematic history. No,
Speaker 2: is it at least inventive? Does it give us something
Speaker 2: a little bit new? Then? Yes? I think so.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I kind of like this one. It seems actually like
Speaker 3: plausible from a folklore standpoint, that sounds like something that
Speaker 3: could really be believed to harm a vampire in some scenario.
Speaker 3: And yeah, I don't know, it was different. I liked it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess. There is a bathtub scene in The
Speaker 2: Lost Boys. There's something but that was like a bathtub
Speaker 2: full of holy water.
Speaker 3: I think, ah, okay, I've forgotten about that.
Speaker 2: If memory serves also.
Speaker 3: Lost Boys came later, yeah, oh yeah, yeah, much later.
Speaker 3: But eventually Laura Mr Van Helsing does go to the
Speaker 3: church to confront Dracula, and there is a great trap
Speaker 3: setting scene. He digs a pit outside the church and
Speaker 3: he fills it full of wooden steaks. He takes his
Speaker 3: trusty silver dagger with him, which he has showed off
Speaker 3: several times before, and there is a showdown, a final
Speaker 3: battle in the church. And there were a couple of
Speaker 3: parts here that I thought were actually kind of scary.
Speaker 3: I don't usually expect to find anything all that frightening
Speaker 3: in a hammer horror movie, but like the part where
Speaker 3: Dracula is chasing Van Helsing up the spiral staircase into
Speaker 3: the tower I thought was quite menacing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because really throughout the film they do a great
Speaker 2: job of establishing Dracula as such a threat, and suddenly
Speaker 2: in that stairwell, it's like everything is so claustrophobic, and
Speaker 2: there's this feeling of just being in an enclosed space
Speaker 2: with something that is just beyond even a vicious animal,
Speaker 2: just pure bloodthirsty hunger.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so they have a showdown. There's kind of
Speaker 3: a fake out here. Van Helsing stabs Dracula with his
Speaker 3: silver dagger, but Dracula is aided by the hypnotized Jessica
Speaker 3: van Helsing. She comes up and pulls the dagger out
Speaker 3: of him, and her grandpa is like, no, Jessica.
Speaker 2: This one caught me up in the moment, you know,
Speaker 2: you know the movie's not going to end like that.
Speaker 2: This movie's only ending way. But getting caught up in
Speaker 2: just the sort of the spirit of the film, I
Speaker 2: was like, oh man, this is bad news.
Speaker 3: But of course we saw him dig that trap earlier, right,
Speaker 3: so the trap comes back. In the end, he throws
Speaker 3: holy water. Van Helsing throws holy water on Dracula that
Speaker 3: kind of burns him yow, and he falls into the pit.
Speaker 3: And then to really drive it home, Van Helsing like
Speaker 3: grabs a shovel and like shoves Dracula down onto the
Speaker 3: wooden stakes with the shovel, and this breaks the spell
Speaker 3: over Jessica. They're all right, and I guess some of
Speaker 3: her friends are still alive or boyfriend's dead. But I
Speaker 3: don't know. If you with the hippie group, they're still
Speaker 3: kicking around.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know if they're gonna hang out much anymore,
Speaker 2: but yeah, some survive. I will say, in this movie,
Speaker 2: you had two different scenes with the melting vampire, so
Speaker 2: you end up melting the same vampire twice in the
Speaker 2: same picture. They at least made sure to have the
Speaker 2: second vampire death look even better than the first. I
Speaker 2: have to say that this one looked really good and gnarly,
Speaker 2: and I liked it quite a bit.
Speaker 3: Agree. So that's all I got for Dracula AD nineteen
Speaker 3: seventy two. I enjoyed this one. I'm not gonna I'm
Speaker 3: not gonna say it's the best Dracula movie I've ever seen,
Speaker 3: But if you're looking for those early seventies vibes, and
Speaker 3: you want some Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing in there too,
Speaker 3: It's it's perfect.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I'm not going to recommend Dracula AD nineteen seventy
Speaker 2: two to everyone, but if the title Dracula AD nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy two stirs something inside you, then yes, you must
Speaker 2: see this film, and I encourage you to do so.
Speaker 3: It's way better than Land of the Minotaur.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, I would agree, but the score for Land
Speaker 2: of the Minotar was better though I don't know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but Land of the Minotaur didn't have Stone Ground.
Speaker 2: That's right, if they'd only had the musical stylings of
Speaker 2: Stone Ground. All right, we're gonna gohead and close this
Speaker 2: one out. But as always we remind you that we're
Speaker 2: primarily a science podcast, real science, not the Van Helsing
Speaker 2: branch of science, with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays,
Speaker 2: but on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns to
Speaker 2: just talk about a weird movie here on Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 2: If you want a full list of the movies we've
Speaker 2: discussed over the years on Weird House Cinema, head on
Speaker 2: over to Letterbox dot com. It's l E T T
Speaker 2: E R b o x D dot com. Our username
Speaker 2: there is weird House, and we have a list and
Speaker 2: you can see all the films we've talked about. You
Speaker 2: can go back through the archives there and see, well,
Speaker 2: what other Dracula movies have they watched? I guess kind
Speaker 2: of sort of two or three other Dracula films.
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Jjposway.
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 3: to topic for the future, or just to say hello,
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or ever you listen to your favorite shows.