So what happens next? The title says it all. Freddie Francis's Dracula Has Risen from the Grave is Hammer's fourth vampire picture, and it's the third with Christopher Lee and the second without Peter Cushing as valiant Van Helsing. Cushing is sorely missed, but a couple of youngsters take up the slack: Barbara Ewing as sexy barmaid Zena and Barry Andrews as refreshing atheist Paul. Because this is a Hammer picture, which always balanced its buckets of re-paint blood and leering close-ups of cleavage with a pretty conservative outlook, you know Paul will see the light by the time the closing credits roll, but it does this with enough subtlety to not be totally off putting.
Not that Dracula Has Risen from the Grave is a top-tier Hammer. It's neither a genuinely fine horror picture like Terence Fisher's original Dracula of 1958 nor a grade-A slab of camp like Alan Gibson's Dracula A.D. 1972, despite an inadvertently hilarious death scene in the final reel. The road to that otherwise exciting finale passes long stretches of dullness with plenty of turgid dialog from screenwriter Anthony Hinds, working under his pseudonym John Elder. The film is not bad, and cinematographer Arthur Grant makes a few interesting choices, such as the rainbow filters he lays over a few scenes as an alternative to Hammer's usual day-for-night purple, but it could have been a lot better. There's a great premise nestled in this plot, a sort of Jekyll and Hyde love triangle in which the barmaid, instead of the male lead, transforms into a monster. Alas, Zena never gets to go full vampire, leaving Christopher Lee's Dracula as the big bad, and he mostly just points while wearing bloodshot contact lenses. It is nice to see him get a few more lines of dialog than he'd get in Hammer's next few Dracula films and take Drac in a sexier direction, as he nuzzles his victims before sinking the fangs in, but the slack pacing and what-might-have-beens ultimately make Dracula Has Risen from the Grave a frustrating picture.
What's not frustrating is Warner Brothers' Blu-ray presentation, at least in terms of the film, itself. It eliminates the white specs that flickered all over the film's previous DVD incarnation and tidies up the visuals without reducing faces to waxy lumps. The picture is clear and natural and the colors Grant and Francis love so much really pop. The total lack of extras is another disappointment though.
Dracula Has Risen from the Grave was first released on Blu-ray in a set with three other Hammers in 2015 before receiving a stand-alone release two years ago. That's the one I'm reviewing now. You can get it on moviezyng here.
