Within, they find a dinner table curiously laid for four people, and rooms made ready for them, with their luggage already installed. Their delight at an approaching driverless carriage turns to apprehension when, against their will, it transports them to the very castle they have been told to avoid. Helen (Barbara Shelley) becomes Dracula’s (Christopher Lee) first vampire victim in Dracula Prince of Darkness (Hammer 1966)ĭismissing his caution, Helen cajoles the others into pressing on with their plans, but on the road to Carlsbad they are abandoned by their coach driver, who is too afraid to enter the town after dark. When they reveal their travels are to take them to Carlsbad, the abbot warns them to steer clear of a castle in the area which is not to be found on any map. Following the dispersal of the barbaric funeral cortege, Sandor stumbles across four English tourists at an inn in the Carpathians: Charles Kent (Matthews), his wife Diana ( Suzan Farmer), brother Alan (Charles Tingwell) and reserved sister-in-law Helen (Barbara Shelley). The action picks up some years after the end of the original film, opening with a nice vignette of the potential staking of the body of an innocent village girl thwarted by the Abbot of Kleinberg, Father Sandor (Keir). With a strong, competent cast including Andrew Keir, Francis Matthews and Barbara Shelley, Dracula Prince of Darkness is arguably the best Dracula sequel Hammer ever made, with its brooding tension and handsome sets. Lee had not yet fallen out of love with the Count, and gave an exceptional performance in Dracula Prince of Darkness (Hammer 1966) As I am already a vampire from the word go, there is nothing I can say – not even a courteous ‘Well, here we go again…’” “He had a flair for the dramatic, dignity, and a strong sense of survival, too, like any sensible man.” The star went on, in a letter to his fan club in May 1965, “I hope people will not be disappointed by a greying Dracula – and, incidentally, as Dracula I never say a word. “I’m getting to like the old boy,” he told Hammer’s publicists. Gather them he did, however, for the first of the studio’s sequels to their monster hit, which saw Lee play the character for the second time without his now-legendary latter reservations. But, for the most part, page design which invites close exploration and artwork with a macabre, comic-book feel, complement Stoker’s tale admirably.At the end of Christopher Lee’s dramatic, dusty demise as the titular character in Hammer’s Dracula (1958), we see that count’s ashes divinely scattering to the winds, making it very difficult for Klove (Philip Latham) to gather them together again for Dracula Prince of Darkness (1966). There is some needless compromise, maybe in the spirit of the Horrible Histories, in the humour of some of the embellishments to the original version vampire survival courses are outlined and recommended, with a Special Offer on ‘Attractive crucifix and mirror set’. Most startlingly, as a page is turned, a veritable plague of bared-teeth rats springs up towards the reader’s face. They will also be invited to ‘Pull Here!’ to transform the Count’s victim Lucy Westenra from rosy-cheeked beauty to whey-faced witch or to sink Dracula’s fangs savagely into the sleeping Mina’s neck. In addition, as young readers search the attractively crowded pages, they will discover ‘a bite-sized travel guide to Transylvania’, a secret map of Castle Dracula, medical notes on hypnotism and the use of garlic and the endpapers offer a spin-the-wheel board game entitled ‘Escape from Dracula’. In fewer than thirty openings, a very readable skeleton of Bram Stoker’s narrative and his use of diary entries, ships’ logs, newspaper clippings, occasional letters and telegrams are preserved. ![]() So the resurrection of one of the classic bloodsuckers in an inventively packaged, large novelty picture book version is timely. ![]() Vampires are in vogue once again, perhaps on the back of the multi-million dollar Twilight industry. Bram Stoker's Dracula Illustrator: Nicola L Robinson
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