Scars of Dracula

Director - Roy Ward Baker (The Monster Club, The Vault of Horror)
Starring - Christopher Lee (The Wicker Man, A Feast at Midnight), Dennis Waterman (Canterbury Tales, Churchill's People), and Jenny Hanley (The Flesh and Blood Show, The Hanged Man)
Release Date - 1970
Genre - Horror
Tagline - "Shock show of the year!"
Format - Bluray (Personal Collection) (Screener)

Rating (out of 5):

     Here we go.  Jumping from the 3rd film in the Hammer Dracula to the 6th and I'm still going strong on my Dracula marathon.  As I stated in my previous review for Dracula: Prince of Darkness, many of the Hammer Dracula films were released on blu by two different companies.  Horror of Dracula, Dracula Has Risen from the Grave, Taste the Blood of Dracula, Dracula A.D. 1972, and The Satanic Rites of Dracula were released by Warner Brothers while Brides of Dracula was released by Universal in a box set unless you buy a region B blu.  The remaining films, Dracula: Prince of Darkness, Scars of Dracula, and The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires were released by Scream Factory.  My reviews for this series has been sporadic due to not getting Most of the Warner releases for review but I am working on ordering them for my collection and later reviews.  After Dracula: Prince of Darkness my next movie for review is Scream's Scars of Dracula.  Thanks Scream for sending this one over!

     The film follows two brothers, one that lives the good life by always finding the prettiest woman to sleep with and has no worries while the other has met the love of his life and strives to deliver a great life to his beloved.  When the carefree brother goes missing after visiting Castle Dracula, the brother and his girlfriend visit the castle to look for answers.  What they uncover is that Dracula, who was presumed dead, is still alive and well and has his sights set on the young man's beautiful young woman.  Now he must stop the king of the vampires before he can deliver the kiss of death upon her neck.

     This is another one of the films I remember binging sometime back and liking it but remembering it was one of the weaker Hammer films.  My revisit was still the same response.  It wasn't bad but extremely mediocre when compared to earlier Hammer releases.  The acting in this one is solid.  The characters, by this point, are repetitive and almost boring in a sense.  The cast has little to work with by this point which results in some extremely boring scenes.  We do get a fun performance from Patrick Troughton as Dracula's servant/slave Klove.  Christopher Lee, like some of the more recent sequels, does ride the bench most of the film but we do get Troughton to liven up the scenes.  The story for this one reminds me a lot of Dracula: Prince of Darkness where we follow people inside the walls of Castle Dracula when he miraculously appears after dying in the previous film.  I blame the lazy writing and greed on the mediocrity of this installment.  Finally, there is some blood, but not as much as previous installments, and the effects are tossed together.  It's evident that this is one of the films produced by Hammer as they started their descend.  Little to no imagination was used during the death scenes but they are common of typical vampire films.  Overall, Scars of Dracula is not a bad movie but it is definitely one of the weaker films in the Hammer Dracula series.  It lacks imagination and originality but does deliver on the amazing sets and wardrobe.