Review of Dracula (1958) by Jonathan B — 30 Oct 2014

There's a certain camp charm to the old Hammer classics. The blood is just the wrong shade of red, the wigs just a little too nylon and the accents a little too affected to be scary these days but they are certainly entertaining and contain some of the most enduring images in cinema history.

Hammer's Dracula has the dream partnership of Peter Cushing as Van Helsing and Christopher Lee as Dracula and they forged an enduring partnership working on many of the best horrors of the 50s and 60s.

Everyone knows the Bram Stoker story thanks to its enduring appeal and this movie was one of the first to attempt to stick fairly closely to the novel with Dracula moving from his Transylvanian home to England where he brings terror to the bedrooms of the unsuspecting middle classes.

Lee and Cushing have a magnetism on screen that really commands the viewers attention and makes them so memorable and the undisputed masters of this genre. Cushing was such a brilliant actor it almost seems strange that such a gentle and unassuming man came to be associated with such dark, gothic tales but combined with Lee's charismatic personality and striking features they have never been bettered.

Forget the dated look and wooden sets, the stereotypical characters and the theatrical script. Instead revel in the electrifying performances of the leads in this classic genre-making movie.