Dracula — Prince of Darkness (1965). ****
Directed by veteran director Terence Fischer, this film is a true gem of the vampire cinema. A group of bored and provincial Victorian couples are stranded in a remote castle, where a lone, devoted follower of the Count murders one of them and uses the victim's blood to resurrect the Count by pouring it over his ashes. Unfortunately, the Count had degenerated into a one-dimensional character: He is just menacing; no longer is he charming or refined or even rapaciously seductive. The Van Helsing figure in the novel is replaced in this film by a priest — Father Sandor, who stalks the vampire to his castle and brings about his demise.
Billy the Kid vs. Dracula (1966). *
Perhaps the worst horror film — if one can call it that — ever made, along with Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter (1965); both were directed by William Beaudine. The most amazing thing about this film is why — and how — it ever got produced.
The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967). ***
This is Roman Polanski's much over-praised vampire film, an attempt to parody the genre, a task easily enough accomplished given the trivialized state of the contemporary genre. At least, however, Polanski got the mythology right, but the humor is rather juvenile, and his attempts at eroticism are adolescent.
A Taste of Blood (1967). **
A run-of-the-mill horror film about an American who is infected with the vampire blood of one of his ancestors. Its form is that of the "stalk and slash" movie — the absolute bottom-of-the-barrel stereotypical formula.
Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968). **
A Hammer Studios' film in which, as the title implies, the plot is banal and the writer's inspiration is sorely lacking.
