DRACULA principe delle tenebre

(Dracula Prince of Darkness)

1965, regia di Terence Fisher

Scheda: Nazione: GB - Produzione: Hammer Film Productions Limited, Seven Arts - Distribuzione: Dear Fox, 20th Century Fox Film Corporation, Warner-Pathe Distributors Ltd. - Soggetto (da un'idea di Anthony Hinds): Anthony Hinds  (come John Elder) - Sceneggiatura: Jimmy Sangster (come John Sansom) - Fotografia: Michael Reed - Montaggio: Chris Barnes - Scenografia: Don Mingaye - Costumi: Rosemary Burrows - Musica: James Bernard - Effetti speciali: Bowie Films Ltd. - Formato: Techniscope Technicolor - Durata: 89'.

Cast: Christopher Lee, Philip Latham, Barbara Shelley, Andrew Keir, Suzanne Farmer, Francis Matthews, Charles 'Bud' Tingwell, Thorley Walters, Walter Brown, George Woodbridge, Jack Lambert, Philip Ray, Joyce Hemson, John Maxim, Peter Cushing.

Trama e commenti: cinematografo.it - kataweb.it - mymovies.it: «Pur avvertiti, quattro viaggiatori incauti – piuttosto rigidi nel loro moralismo vittoriano – accettano l'ospitalitŕ in un misterioso castello dei Carpazi dove il defunto conte Dracula resuscita e si scatena. 7 anni dopo Dracula il vampiro la Hammer convince Fisher e Lee, riluttanti, a riprendere il personaggio di Stoker, ma la deludente sceneggiatura di Jimmy Sangster li induce a eliminare tutte le battute di Dracula (e lo scrittore irritato si firma come John Sansom). Non citato nei titoli di testa, all'inizio appare Peter Cushing come Van Helsing in una sequenza del film precedente che fa da raccordo. Ideologicamente e figurativamente il film č in linea con l'altro, ma gli rimane inferiore. Notevole la sequenza della morte di Dracula nell'acqua gelata».

Plot Summary, Synopsis, Review: IMDb - entertainment.msn.com - membres.lycos.fr/gimena - tranquility.net: «A group of English tourists are seeking a place to stay for the evening while travelling in the Carpathian mountains. The local monastery is full up and there are no vacancies at the inns, either. Our travellers wind up at Castle Dracula, which looks quaint enough in the daylight. Father Sandor from the monastery has warned them away from the place, but they stupidly ignore him. As night falls, one of the men is abducted by the castle's caretaker, who upends him above a tub and slashes his throat. He bleeds into the tub, over the dusty remains therein, and suddenly, Dracula rises again and promptly transforms one of the women into a vampire wanton. Our hero and her fiancee seek help at the monastery and this time, Father Sandor takes them in. Sandor knows what evil has descended on the land, but is unable to stop Dracula from giving his unholy communion to our hero's girl. The chase is on to destroy the vampire before his chosen bride joins him in undeath. The film climaxes with a twilight showdown on the frozen river that flows in front of Castle Dracula, when Father Sandor realizes that the running water beneath the ice is fatal to vampires... For a while, the formula in the Hammer Films had the power of myth. The elements assembled for the Hammer Horrors seemed ordained by fate. These movies pitted the upright forces of good against the depraved forces of evil according to strictly ritualized rules: the secondary female character becomes a vampire wanton, the hero's girfriend becomes tainted, the vampire hunting savant educates the hero in the ways of vampire slaying, and the vampire is destroyed at the end--usually in some variety of spectacular disintegration. The formula strangled the Hammer Horrors in the end, reducing them to pale shadows that subsisted on t&a and a splash of red rather than the red meat of great horror movies. But at the oustet, before it was stale, it worked marvelously...».

Approfondimenti: Movie Review

Conosciuto anche con i titoli: Dracula; Dracula 3; The Bloody Scream of Dracula; Disciple of Dracula; Revenge of Dracula; Blut für Dracula; Dracula, Prince des Tenebres; Dracula, Príncipe de las Tinieblas.

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