Event

THE SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA

Dir. Alan Gibson, 1973
UK, 87 min.
English

"Evil rules, you know. It really does."
The last in Hammer's run of Lee vs. Cushing Dracula films, the last Hammer film to use actual occultists as consultants, and a lurid stew of spy tropes, supernatural horror, black masses, THE SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA is considered a lesser Hammer by Anglophiles and dilettantes, but we know better, don't we? Just consider one of the absolute best-ever monologues of cosmic dread and horror from Freddie Jones, playing Julian Keeley, a professor commanded to create a virulent variant on the black plague in order to serve the whims of The Dark Lord Lucifer! Sidestepping earlier period-piece Gothic trappings for a thoroughly contemporary London, it's both sleek and pulpy, with as many gunfights, dirtbike chases, double crosses, regular crosses, basement nightgown covens of undead brides and occult goings-on as anyone could possibly want. A secret sect of British VIPs perform unholy rites of sacrifice in order to appease their abominable lord! It's always fun to watch Lee and Cushing face off, the secret agent/cop drama aspect keeps everything at a brisk clip, and if that's not enough to sell you it literally starts with a black mass in which a woman is sacrificed and returns from the dead!