Amazon.com video review:
After Hammer Studios' tremendous success with The Curse of
Frankenstein, they struck a deal to adapt Universal's catalog
of classics and set their sights first on Dracula. Christopher Lee
removes the monstrous makeup from the earlier film and makes his entrance
as an elegant, confident, altogether seductive Dracula, a frightening
figure
of flashing eyes and erotic allure. Peter Cushing, with his hawklike
profile and piercing eyes, turns his rationalist intensity to Van Helsing:
man of science as crusading vampire hunter. Director Terence Fisher and
screenwriter Jimmy Sangster make a few changes to Bram Stoker's tale; gone
are Renfield, Transylvania, howling wolves, and transformations into bats.
The Count is an old-world aristocrat firmly ensconced in a castle in England
and Van Helsing a crusading vampire hunter who plots his demise with an
elaborate plan. This is the first film to really mine the erotic appeal of
vampires: Dracula seduces Mina and Lucy like a devil tempting good to the
dark side through sex--more suggestive than explicit, but daring for 1958.
Lee is electric as the ferocious Count, despite his limited screen time, and
Cushing turns Van Helsing into a virtual swashbuckler of a hero, leaping and
diving through the climax like an aging action hero. Cushing reprises his
role in The Brides of Dracula, while Lee absented himself from the series
until 1966's Dracula: Prince of Darkness. --Sean Axmaker
