Dracula: Prince of Darkness
Encyclopedia
Dracula: Prince of Darkness is a 1966 British horror film
directed by Terence Fisher
for Hammer Studios
. The film was photographed in Techniscope
by Michael Reed, designed by Bernard Robinson
and scored by James Bernard.
, showing Dracula’s destruction and the end of his "reign of terror".
Nearly ten years later, Father Sandor (a local abbot) interrupts a funeral ceremony — in which a young woman's corpse is about to be staked through the heart and then cremated despite her mother's anguished pleas — and chastises the presiding priest for perpetuating the fear of vampirism. He demonstrates that the woman does not carry the curse, and admonishes the mourners to conduct a proper Christian burial.
Sandor then visits an inn where four English tourists (the Kents) are staying. He warns the Kents not to go to Karlsbad, but if they do they should stay well clear of the castle. The Kents take pride in their lack of superstition, and are unmoved by Sandor's warning. They set out for Karlsbad the following day.
Due to a broken carriage wheel, the group are four hours behind schedule. As night draws near, their fear-stricken coach driver refuses to continue any further and dumps them unceremoniously just about two kilometres from Karlsbad and within sight of the castle. As they are considering staying in an old woodsman’s hut overnight, a driverless carriage and two horses arrives. Charles Kent tries to drive the coach to Karlsbad, but the horses take them to the castle. They exit the carriage and as they look inside the castle, the coach races off. Helen, who resisted boarding the carriage, reiterates her concerns.
The castle appears to be abandoned but well-maintained. A dining table inside is set for four people. They find their bags, which had been left in the carriage, have been unpacked in the upstairs bedrooms. A strange servant named Klove appears. He explains that his master, the late Count Dracula, ordered that the castle should always be ready to welcome strangers. Klove serves them dinner. The Kents later settle in their rooms, but Helen continues to entreat her husband Alan to leave the castle, saying there will be no morning for them.
Late at night, a noise is heard and Alan investigates. He finds Klove dragging a heavy chest, and follows him to the crypt. There, he finds Dracula’s sarcophagus but no sign of Klove. Klove stabs him from behind and mixes Alan's blood with Dracula's ashes to revive his master. Klove convinces Helen to come to the crypt with a vague warning that something has befallen Alan. In the cellar she finds the resurrected Dracula who makes her his first victim.
The next morning Charles and Diana can find no trace of Alan, Helen, or Klove. Charles takes Diana to the woodsman’s hut and then returns to the castle to search for them.
Klove tricks Diana into also returning to the castle, claiming that he has been sent by Charles. Charles, meanwhile, finds Alan’s dismembered body in a trunk in the crypt. It is dark already (being winter) and Dracula rises. Diana sees Helen, not realising now that she is one of the undead. Helen attacks Diana but stops at a hiss from Dracula. Charles attacks Dracula, but is quickly outmatched. Diana accidentally burns Helen with her crucifix and realises it can be used as a weapon against vampires. Charles catches on and uses two parts of a broken sword as a cross to drive Dracula back.
Klove tries to sneak up on them but is struck down as the two leave the castle in a carriage. Traveling too fast, the carriage crashes and Diana is knocked unconscious. Charles carries her for several hours through the wilderness. Father Sandor discovers them and transports them to his abbey where she can recover. Diana does not regain consciousness for two days, so Charles is forced to stay at the monastery while she recovers. While waiting for Diana to awaken, Sandor tells Charles about Dracula.
Klove, disguised as a tinker, arrives at the monastery in a wagon carrying two coffins (containing Dracula and Helen). Klove claims to seek accommodations for the night, but is denied admission by the monks.
Ludwig is another patient at the abbey, whose mind was unhinged from a previous encounter with Dracula. Still in thrall to Dracula, Dracula easily convinces Ludwig to invite him inside. Helen convinces Diana to open the window for her. Diana is bitten, but Dracula drags Helen off as he wants Diana for himself. Charles bursts into the room and drives the vampires out. Sandor sterilises the bite with the heat from an oil lamp.
Sandor puts silver crucifixes in the two coffins in the tinker’s wagon to prevent the vampires returning there at dawn - unable to hide from the sun in their coffins, they will be destroyed. Helen is captured and staked, but Ludwig lures Diana into Dracula’s presence, where she is hypnotised into taking off her crucifix. Dracula coerces her to drink his blood from his bare chest, but Charles returns just before she can drink, forcing Dracula to flee with the unconscious Diana.
Charles and Sandor arm themselves and follow on horseback, over a day’s ride. A shortcut allows them to get in front of the tinker's wagon and stop it. Charles shoots Klove but the horses gallop off to the castle. The wagon stops abruptly at the bridge and one coffin slides out onto the frozen moat. Diana is released from the other coffin and Charles advances across the thin ice toward Dracula's coffin. He is grabbed by Dracula as the coffin’s lid is thrown open.
Diana shoots at Dracula but hits the ice instead, and running water spurts out - which a vampire cannot cross. Cornered, Dracula overpowers Charles, but Charles escapes his clutches as more shots from Sandor break up the ice around the Count. Unable to climb the nearby moat wall, Dracula sinks into the freezing water and perishes.
But screenwriter Jimmy Sangster, in his memoir Inside Hammer (Reynolds & Hearn, 2001), stated that "Vampires don't chat. So I didn't write him any dialogue. Chris Lee has claimed that he refused to speak the lines he was given ... So you can take your pick as to why Christopher Lee didn't have any dialogue in the picture. Or you can take my word for it. I didn't write any."
A novelization
of the film was written by John Burke
as part of his 1967 book The Second Hammer Horror Film Omnibus.
The film was made back-to-back with Rasputin, the Mad Monk
, using many of the same sets and cast. Barbara Shelley later remembered accidentally swallowing one of her fangs in one scene, and having to drink salt water to bring it back up again because of the tight shooting schedule (as well as there being no spare set of fangs).
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 Terence Fisher
Terence Fisher
Terence Fisher was a film director who worked for Hammer Films. He was born in Maida Vale, a district of London, England.Fisher was one of the most prominent horror directors of the second half of the 20th century...
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...
. The film was photographed in Techniscope
Techniscope
Techniscope or 2-Perf is a 35mm motion picture camera film format introduced by Technicolor Italia in 1963. The Techniscope format uses a two film-perforation negative pulldown per frame, instead of the standard four-perforation frame usually exposed in 35mm film photography...
by Michael Reed, designed by Bernard Robinson
Bernard Robinson (production designer)
Bernard Robinson was born in Liverpool, England in 1912 and died in 1970. He designed sets for several of Hammer's films in their heyday, including The Curse of Frankenstein , Dracula , Curse of the Werewolf , The Phantom of the Opera , The Gorgon and Quatermass and the Pit...
and scored by James Bernard.
Plot
The film opens with the final scenes from DraculaDracula (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...
, showing Dracula’s destruction and the end of his "reign of terror".
Nearly ten years later, Father Sandor (a local abbot) interrupts a funeral ceremony — in which a young woman's corpse is about to be staked through the heart and then cremated despite her mother's anguished pleas — and chastises the presiding priest for perpetuating the fear of vampirism. He demonstrates that the woman does not carry the curse, and admonishes the mourners to conduct a proper Christian burial.
Sandor then visits an inn where four English tourists (the Kents) are staying. He warns the Kents not to go to Karlsbad, but if they do they should stay well clear of the castle. The Kents take pride in their lack of superstition, and are unmoved by Sandor's warning. They set out for Karlsbad the following day.
Due to a broken carriage wheel, the group are four hours behind schedule. As night draws near, their fear-stricken coach driver refuses to continue any further and dumps them unceremoniously just about two kilometres from Karlsbad and within sight of the castle. As they are considering staying in an old woodsman’s hut overnight, a driverless carriage and two horses arrives. Charles Kent tries to drive the coach to Karlsbad, but the horses take them to the castle. They exit the carriage and as they look inside the castle, the coach races off. Helen, who resisted boarding the carriage, reiterates her concerns.
The castle appears to be abandoned but well-maintained. A dining table inside is set for four people. They find their bags, which had been left in the carriage, have been unpacked in the upstairs bedrooms. A strange servant named Klove appears. He explains that his master, the late Count Dracula, ordered that the castle should always be ready to welcome strangers. Klove serves them dinner. The Kents later settle in their rooms, but Helen continues to entreat her husband Alan to leave the castle, saying there will be no morning for them.
Late at night, a noise is heard and Alan investigates. He finds Klove dragging a heavy chest, and follows him to the crypt. There, he finds Dracula’s sarcophagus but no sign of Klove. Klove stabs him from behind and mixes Alan's blood with Dracula's ashes to revive his master. Klove convinces Helen to come to the crypt with a vague warning that something has befallen Alan. In the cellar she finds the resurrected Dracula who makes her his first victim.
The next morning Charles and Diana can find no trace of Alan, Helen, or Klove. Charles takes Diana to the woodsman’s hut and then returns to the castle to search for them.
Klove tricks Diana into also returning to the castle, claiming that he has been sent by Charles. Charles, meanwhile, finds Alan’s dismembered body in a trunk in the crypt. It is dark already (being winter) and Dracula rises. Diana sees Helen, not realising now that she is one of the undead. Helen attacks Diana but stops at a hiss from Dracula. Charles attacks Dracula, but is quickly outmatched. Diana accidentally burns Helen with her crucifix and realises it can be used as a weapon against vampires. Charles catches on and uses two parts of a broken sword as a cross to drive Dracula back.
Klove tries to sneak up on them but is struck down as the two leave the castle in a carriage. Traveling too fast, the carriage crashes and Diana is knocked unconscious. Charles carries her for several hours through the wilderness. Father Sandor discovers them and transports them to his abbey where she can recover. Diana does not regain consciousness for two days, so Charles is forced to stay at the monastery while she recovers. While waiting for Diana to awaken, Sandor tells Charles about Dracula.
Klove, disguised as a tinker, arrives at the monastery in a wagon carrying two coffins (containing Dracula and Helen). Klove claims to seek accommodations for the night, but is denied admission by the monks.
Ludwig is another patient at the abbey, whose mind was unhinged from a previous encounter with Dracula. Still in thrall to Dracula, Dracula easily convinces Ludwig to invite him inside. Helen convinces Diana to open the window for her. Diana is bitten, but Dracula drags Helen off as he wants Diana for himself. Charles bursts into the room and drives the vampires out. Sandor sterilises the bite with the heat from an oil lamp.
Sandor puts silver crucifixes in the two coffins in the tinker’s wagon to prevent the vampires returning there at dawn - unable to hide from the sun in their coffins, they will be destroyed. Helen is captured and staked, but Ludwig lures Diana into Dracula’s presence, where she is hypnotised into taking off her crucifix. Dracula coerces her to drink his blood from his bare chest, but Charles returns just before she can drink, forcing Dracula to flee with the unconscious Diana.
Charles and Sandor arm themselves and follow on horseback, over a day’s ride. A shortcut allows them to get in front of the tinker's wagon and stop it. Charles shoots Klove but the horses gallop off to the castle. The wagon stops abruptly at the bridge and one coffin slides out onto the frozen moat. Diana is released from the other coffin and Charles advances across the thin ice toward Dracula's coffin. He is grabbed by Dracula as the coffin’s lid is thrown open.
Diana shoots at Dracula but hits the ice instead, and running water spurts out - which a vampire cannot cross. Cornered, Dracula overpowers Charles, but Charles escapes his clutches as more shots from Sandor break up the ice around the Count. Unable to climb the nearby moat wall, Dracula sinks into the freezing water and perishes.
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...
as Count Dracula - Barbara ShelleyBarbara ShelleyBarbara Shelley is an English film and television actress.She is now retired, but was at her busiest in the late 1950s and 1960s when she became Hammer Horror's number one female star, with The Gorgon , Dracula, Prince of Darkness , Rasputin, the Mad Monk , andQuatermass and the Pit among her...
as Helen Kent - Andrew KeirAndrew KeirAndrew Keir was a Scottish actor, who rose to prominence featuring in a number of films from Hammer Film Productions in the 1960s. He was also active in television, and particularly in the theatre, in a professional career that lasted from the 1940s to the 1990s...
as Father Sandor - Francis MatthewsFrancis Matthews (actor)-Early life:Matthews attended St Michael's Jesuit College, Leeds and started his acting career with Leeds repertory theatre before service in the Royal Navy.-Career:...
as Charles Kent - Suzan FarmerSuzan FarmerSuzan Farmer is an English actress, mainly on television.She first appeared in an episode of the Patrick McGoohan series Danger Man entitled No Marks for Servility and went on to feature in many other ITC series in the 1960s and 70s including UFO, The Saint, Man in a Suitcase and The Persuaders!...
as Diana Kent - Charles Tingwell as Alan Kent
- Thorley WaltersThorley WaltersThorley Walters was an English character actor.He is probably best remembered for his comedy film roles such as in Two-Way Stretch and Carlton-Browne of the FO...
as Ludwig - Philip LathamPhilip LathamPhilip Latham is a British actor. He was educated at Felsted School.In the late 1960s/early 1970s he was well known to British TV viewers for his portrayal of chief accountant Willy Izard, the "conscience" to hard-nosed oil company industrialist Brian Stead in the BBC series The Troubleshooters...
as Klove - Walter BrownWalter Brown (actor)Walter Brown is a New Zealand film and television actor. He was born Ian Walter Brown in Auckland, New Zealand on 9 February 1927.-Selected filmography:* The Frightened City * Mix Me a Person...
as Brother Mark - George WoodbridgeGeorge Woodbridge (actor)George Woodbridge was an English character actor in films and television from the 1930s to the 1970s...
as Landlord - Jack LambertJack Lambert (British actor)Jack Lambert was a British film and television actor.-Selected filmography:* Red Ensign * The Ghost Goes West * Premiere * Nine Men * Floodtide * The Lost Hours...
as Brother Peter - Philip RayPhilip Ray-Selected filmography:* Head Office * The Perfect Crime * The Man Who Made Diamonds * Send for Paul Temple * Fame is the Spur * No Place for Jennifer * Derby Day * Before I Wake...
as Priest - Joyce Hemson as Mother
- John MaximJohn MaximJohn Maxim , sometimes credited as John Wills, was an English film and television actor.-Career:...
as Coach Driver
Production notes
Dracula does not speak in the film. According to Christopher Lee: "I didn’t speak in that picture. The reason was very simple. I read the script and saw the dialogue! I said to Hammer, if you think I’m going to say any of these lines, you’re very much mistaken."But screenwriter Jimmy Sangster, in his memoir Inside Hammer (Reynolds & Hearn, 2001), stated that "Vampires don't chat. So I didn't write him any dialogue. Chris Lee has claimed that he refused to speak the lines he was given ... So you can take your pick as to why Christopher Lee didn't have any dialogue in the picture. Or you can take my word for it. I didn't write any."
A novelization
Novelization
A novelization is a novel that is written based on some other media story form rather than as an original work.Novelizations of films usually add background material not found in the original work to flesh out the story, because novels are generally longer than screenplays...
of the film was written by John Burke
John Burke (author)
John Burke was an English writer of novels and short stories.He had written under the names J. F...
as part of his 1967 book The Second Hammer Horror Film Omnibus.
The film was made back-to-back with Rasputin, the Mad Monk
Rasputin, the Mad Monk
Rasputin, the Mad Monk is a 1966 Hammer film directed by Don Sharp.It stars Christopher Lee as Grigori Rasputin, the Russian peasant-mystic notable for gaining great influence with the Tsars prior to the Russian Revolution. It also stars Barbara Shelley, Francis Matthews, Suzan Farmer, Richard...
, using many of the same sets and cast. Barbara Shelley later remembered accidentally swallowing one of her fangs in one scene, and having to drink salt water to bring it back up again because of the tight shooting schedule (as well as there being no spare set of fangs).