Scars of Dracula
Encyclopedia
Scars of Dracula is a 1970 British horror film
directed by Roy Ward Baker
for Hammer Studios
.
It stars Christopher Lee
as Count Dracula
, alongside Dennis Waterman
, Jenny Hanley
, Patrick Troughton
, and Michael Gwynn
. Although disparaged by some critics, the film does restore a few elements of Bram Stoker
's original character: The Count is introduced as an "icily charming host;" he has command over nature; and he is seen scaling the walls of his castle. It also gives Lee more to do and say than any other Hammer Dracula film except its first, 1958's Horror of Dracula
.
This film somewhat breaks continuity with the previous film in the series, because the film doesn't carry on directly from where the last film left off (in England) being instead set once again in Dracula's homeland. Though a resurrection scene was added to the opening at the insistence of the distributor, the film was intended to inaugurate a new series.
shows Dracula resurrected by blood dropped on his "remains" by a bat. (The disintegration from the previous Taste the Blood of Dracula
is played in reverse.) Local villagers, enraged that yet another young woman has been murdered by the Count, rise up and set fire to Castle Dracula. However, the Count is safely asleep in a solid stone crypt. When the villagers return home, they find that every single woman and child in the village has been slaughtered in the church by bats.
Falsely accused of rape by the spurned burgomasters' daughter, libertine Paul Carlson flees the Kleinenberg authorities by jumping into a nearby coach which, though driverless, heads off at great speed. He is deposited near Count Dracula's mountaintop castle. Initially he is welcomed by the Count and a beautiful woman. Paul later has a liaison with the woman who concludes their lovemaking by trying to bite his neck. Dracula enters and, casually throwing off Paul's efforts to stop him, savagely stabs the woman to death. Dracula's servant Klove dismembers her body and dissolves the pieces in a bath of either holy water or acid. Trapped in a room high in the castle, Paul uses a line to climb down to a lower window but the line is withdrawn and he is trapped in a dark doorless room.
Paul's more sober brother Simon Carlson and Paul's fiancee Sarah Framsen come searching for him. A maid at the tavern directs them to the castle and they investigate. Dracula has immediate designs on the lovely Sarah, but Klove, who has fallen in love with the young woman, helps the young couple escape by refusing to do Dracula's bidding to remove Sarah's crucifix. The servant pays a terrible price for his disobedience, when he is viciously whipped by Dracula with a hot sword.
Simon, having enlisted the help of the village priest, goes back to the castle to look for his brother. However, the priest is attacked by a large bat and killed and Simon is betrayed by Klove, ending up in the same doorless room as his brother. Opening a coffin in the middle of the room, Simon discovers the sleeping Dracula, but the vampire's power reaches through his closed eyelids causing the young man to collapse before he can take action against the Count. When Simon recovers, Dracula is awake and climbs up the sheer outer wall to go after Sarah, knowing that Simon is trapped. Meanwhile, Simon finds his brother's body in a dark recess of the room, impaled on a metal spike.
Sarah has made her way back to the castle and is confronted by Dracula, who this time uses his bat familiar to remove Sarah's crucifix. Klove frees Simon and the two go up to the battlements to try and save Sarah from Dracula. Klove attacks the Count, but is hopelessly outmatched and thrown over the side of the castle. Simon arrives and throws a heavy iron spike at Dracula. It pierces him but he pulls it out, unharmed, and raises it to impale Simon. But the spike is struck by lightning and Dracula, in flames, falls from the castle wall. The end, for now.
and American Continental Films Inc. in England and the United States respectively.
The film was released in some markets on a double feature with The Horror of Frankenstein
.
The film was released on DVD
by Anchor Bay Entertainment
in 2004. This version is currently out of print
. It has since been released as part of "The Ultimate Hammer Collection" DVD range.
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
directed by Roy Ward Baker
Roy Ward Baker
Roy Ward Baker , born Roy Horace Baker, was an English film director, credited as Roy Baker for much of his career. His best known film is A Night to Remember which won a Golden Globe for Best English-Language Foreign Film in 1959...
for Hammer Studios
Hammer Film Productions
Hammer Film Productions is a film production company based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1934, the company is best known for a series of Gothic "Hammer Horror" films made from the mid-1950s until the 1970s. Hammer also produced science fiction, thrillers, film noir and comedies and in later...
.
It stars Christopher Lee
Christopher Lee
Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee, CBE, CStJ is an English actor and musician. Lee initially portrayed villains and became famous for his role as Count Dracula in a string of Hammer Horror films...
as Count Dracula
Count Dracula
Count Dracula is a fictional character, the titular antagonist of Bram Stoker's 1897 Gothic horror novel Dracula and archetypal vampire. Some aspects of his character have been inspired by the 15th century Romanian general and Wallachian Prince Vlad III the Impaler...
, alongside Dennis Waterman
Dennis Waterman
Dennis Waterman is a British actor and singer, best known for his tough-guy roles in television series including The Sweeney, Minder and New Tricks.-Early life:...
, Jenny Hanley
Jenny Hanley
Jenny Hanley is an English actress, the daughter of Dinah Sheridan and Jimmy Hanley.She remains best known for being one of the presenters of the ITV children's magazine programme Magpie....
, Patrick Troughton
Patrick Troughton
Patrick George Troughton was an English actor most widely known for his roles in fantasy, science fiction and horror films, particularly in his role as the second incarnation of the Doctor in the long-running British science-fiction television series Doctor Who, which he played from 1966 to 1969,...
, and Michael Gwynn
Michael Gwynn
Michael Gwynn was an English actor. He attended Mayfield College near Mayfield, East Sussex. During the Second World War he served in East Africa as a major and was adjutant to the 2nd Battalion of the King's African Rifles.He is perhaps best remembered in contemporary culture as the shyster Lord...
. Although disparaged by some critics, the film does restore a few elements of Bram Stoker
Bram Stoker
Abraham "Bram" Stoker was an Irish novelist and short story writer, best known today for his 1897 Gothic novel Dracula...
's original character: The Count is introduced as an "icily charming host;" he has command over nature; and he is seen scaling the walls of his castle. It also gives Lee more to do and say than any other Hammer Dracula film except its first, 1958's Horror of Dracula
Dracula (1958 film)
Dracula, also known as Horror of Dracula in the United States, is a 1958 British horror film. It is the first in the series of Hammer Horror films inspired by the Bram Stoker novel Dracula. It was directed by Terence Fisher, and stars Peter Cushing, Michael Gough, Carol Marsh, Melissa Stribling and...
.
This film somewhat breaks continuity with the previous film in the series, because the film doesn't carry on directly from where the last film left off (in England) being instead set once again in Dracula's homeland. Though a resurrection scene was added to the opening at the insistence of the distributor, the film was intended to inaugurate a new series.
Plot
A prologuePrologue
A prologue is an opening to a story that establishes the setting and gives background details, often some earlier story that ties into the main one, and other miscellaneous information. The Greek prologos included the modern meaning of prologue, but was of wider significance...
shows Dracula resurrected by blood dropped on his "remains" by a bat. (The disintegration from the previous Taste the Blood of Dracula
Taste the Blood of Dracula
Taste the Blood of Dracula is a British horror film produced by Hammer Film Productions and released in 1970. It stars Christopher Lee as Count Dracula, and was directed by Peter Sasdy...
is played in reverse.) Local villagers, enraged that yet another young woman has been murdered by the Count, rise up and set fire to Castle Dracula. However, the Count is safely asleep in a solid stone crypt. When the villagers return home, they find that every single woman and child in the village has been slaughtered in the church by bats.
Falsely accused of rape by the spurned burgomasters' daughter, libertine Paul Carlson flees the Kleinenberg authorities by jumping into a nearby coach which, though driverless, heads off at great speed. He is deposited near Count Dracula's mountaintop castle. Initially he is welcomed by the Count and a beautiful woman. Paul later has a liaison with the woman who concludes their lovemaking by trying to bite his neck. Dracula enters and, casually throwing off Paul's efforts to stop him, savagely stabs the woman to death. Dracula's servant Klove dismembers her body and dissolves the pieces in a bath of either holy water or acid. Trapped in a room high in the castle, Paul uses a line to climb down to a lower window but the line is withdrawn and he is trapped in a dark doorless room.
Paul's more sober brother Simon Carlson and Paul's fiancee Sarah Framsen come searching for him. A maid at the tavern directs them to the castle and they investigate. Dracula has immediate designs on the lovely Sarah, but Klove, who has fallen in love with the young woman, helps the young couple escape by refusing to do Dracula's bidding to remove Sarah's crucifix. The servant pays a terrible price for his disobedience, when he is viciously whipped by Dracula with a hot sword.
Simon, having enlisted the help of the village priest, goes back to the castle to look for his brother. However, the priest is attacked by a large bat and killed and Simon is betrayed by Klove, ending up in the same doorless room as his brother. Opening a coffin in the middle of the room, Simon discovers the sleeping Dracula, but the vampire's power reaches through his closed eyelids causing the young man to collapse before he can take action against the Count. When Simon recovers, Dracula is awake and climbs up the sheer outer wall to go after Sarah, knowing that Simon is trapped. Meanwhile, Simon finds his brother's body in a dark recess of the room, impaled on a metal spike.
Sarah has made her way back to the castle and is confronted by Dracula, who this time uses his bat familiar to remove Sarah's crucifix. Klove frees Simon and the two go up to the battlements to try and save Sarah from Dracula. Klove attacks the Count, but is hopelessly outmatched and thrown over the side of the castle. Simon arrives and throws a heavy iron spike at Dracula. It pierces him but he pulls it out, unharmed, and raises it to impale Simon. But the spike is struck by lightning and Dracula, in flames, falls from the castle wall. The end, for now.
Cast
- Christopher LeeChristopher LeeSir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee, CBE, CStJ is an English actor and musician. Lee initially portrayed villains and became famous for his role as Count Dracula in a string of Hammer Horror films...
(Count Dracula) - Dennis WatermanDennis WatermanDennis Waterman is a British actor and singer, best known for his tough-guy roles in television series including The Sweeney, Minder and New Tricks.-Early life:...
(Simon Carlson) - Jenny HanleyJenny HanleyJenny Hanley is an English actress, the daughter of Dinah Sheridan and Jimmy Hanley.She remains best known for being one of the presenters of the ITV children's magazine programme Magpie....
(Sarah Framsen) - Christopher Matthews (Paul Carlson)
- Michael GwynnMichael GwynnMichael Gwynn was an English actor. He attended Mayfield College near Mayfield, East Sussex. During the Second World War he served in East Africa as a major and was adjutant to the 2nd Battalion of the King's African Rifles.He is perhaps best remembered in contemporary culture as the shyster Lord...
(The Priest) - Michael RipperMichael RipperMichael Ripper was an English character actor born in Portsmouth.He began his film career in quota quickies in the 1930s and until the late 1950s was virtually unknown; he was seldom credited. He played one of the two murderers in Richard III. Ripper became a mainstay in Hammer Film Productions...
(Landlord) - Patrick TroughtonPatrick TroughtonPatrick George Troughton was an English actor most widely known for his roles in fantasy, science fiction and horror films, particularly in his role as the second incarnation of the Doctor in the long-running British science-fiction television series Doctor Who, which he played from 1966 to 1969,...
(Klove) - Anouska HempelAnouska HempelAnouska Hempel, Lady Weinberg , born Anne Geissler, is a film and television actress turned hotelier and designer. She is also a noted figure in London society.-Personal life:...
(Tania) - Wendy Hamilton (Julie)
- Bob ToddBob ToddBob Todd was an English comedy actor, mostly known for appearing as a straight man in the sketch shows of Benny Hill and Spike Milligan. For many years he lived in Tunbridge Wells, Kent....
(Burgomaster)
Release
The film was released theatrically by EMI FilmsEMI Films
EMI Films was a British film and television production company and distributor. The company was formed after the takeover of Associated British Picture Corporation in 1968 by EMI....
and American Continental Films Inc. in England and the United States respectively.
The film was released in some markets on a double feature with The Horror of Frankenstein
The Horror of Frankenstein
The Horror of Frankenstein is a 1970 British horror film by Hammer Film Productions that is both a semi-parody and remake of the 1957 film The Curse of Frankenstein. It was produced and directed by Jimmy Sangster, starring Ralph Bates, Kate O'Mara, Veronica Carlson and David Prowse as the monster...
.
The film was released on DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
by Anchor Bay Entertainment
Anchor Bay Entertainment
Anchor Bay Entertainment is a U.S. based home entertainment and production company and is a division of Starz Media, which is a unit of Starz, LLC. It was previously owned by IDT Entertainment until 2006 when IDT was purchased by Starz Media. Anchor Bay markets and sells feature films, series,...
in 2004. This version is currently out of print
Out of print
Out of print refers to an item, typically a book , but can include any print or visual media or sound recording, that is in the state of no longer being published....
. It has since been released as part of "The Ultimate Hammer Collection" DVD range.