Sunday, October 24, 2010

Stupid Movie Review: The Satanic Rites of Dracula




Director: I don't know. I'm just gonna say Hammer Films. For those of  you who aren't horror movie geeks (heathens), Hammer Films was (and is) a British Film company that produced hundreds of classic horror movies. They took classic monsters (even in the 50's they were classics) gave them some color, the ladies some cleavage, and a good amount of blood. All pretty strong stuff back in the day.


Actors: The single GREATEST horror movie (and beyond) actors of ALL TIME...Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing.



Plot: Hammer Dracula movies are always a good time. Despite the fact that by the time this one was made Christopher Lee really wanted nothing to do with playing the Dracula character anymore, this movie is still a great use of 90 minutes. While most of the Hammer Dracula movies take place in the 19th Century, in some silly little town in Middle Europe, this one takes place in 1970's England. A group of rich old white guys are having little Satanic ritual parties in a big mansion in the country. Scotland Yard suspects that more shit is going on then just that, and they get proof when one of their own escapes after being tortured by a bunch of goons hired by Satan's favorite old people. The cops have a problem however. It turns out that one of the members of this little cult is their boss. Shit. So the lead detectives here decide to investigate anyway to see what the hell these people are up to. They take some surveillance pictures, and they notice that there is a cellar underneath the house they didn't know about. They obviously decide to check it out. Meanwhile, the cops have been consulting with the one guy in all of England who knows some shit about shit, Professor Van Helsing. Peter Cushing may have already been getting old, and this is a few years before we'd see him in Star Wars as Grand Moff Tarkin, but god damn he's awesome. He tells our cops to tread lightly because Satanists are weird. Meanwhile, we also meet Van Helsing's hot granddaughter who agrees to help the cops check out the cellar. The cops and our lady go to the house, and when our girl finds the cellar, she gets attacked by a bunch of vampire whores. Now the shit is hitting the fan. After some investigating of our old Satan cult guys, the good guys figure out that maybe Dracula himself is behind all the shit, and he wants to kill everybody.


Gore: A lot of blood flies everywhere in this movie. We even have gun violence.


Boobs: Yeah actually. They're not great but they're there.


Logic issues: Van Helsing, you have been killing vampires for like 800 years. Why the fuck don't you shoot Dracula with the silver bullet you took three days to make? No instead you fucking talk about shooting him, allowing his rich white guy buddies to smack you around. Come on dude. You're better than that. This is the guy who got bit by a vampire in "Brides of Dracula" and fucking GOT RID OF IT by burning his own neck and rinsing it with holy water. THAT Van Helsing would have shot first and then spit on the body.



More logic issues: Why would you send an unarmed girl to check the basement? I'm talking to you stupid British cops.



Dracula is: one evil motherfucker. I mean to have your rich white guy disciples create a super potent bubonic plague to kill every human on the planet is some seriously evil shit.



Unexpected bad ass award: This goes to the younger cop who gets trapped in the house and takes out like 4 vampire sluts by himself. I mean fucks their shit up.



Best scene in the movie: The exchange between Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) and Dracula (Christopher Lee) where they pretty much say they are gonna fight, with awesome British accents. Two actors making a silly movie awesome.


Peter Cushing: RIP


Christopher Lee: is still the man.


I think: Hammer kind of just made up all the different ways to kill Dracula. Like in every one of these movies he dies in a different way. I mean bramble bush? Really?



What I learned from this movie: Satanic cults are always fucked up. Also, I thought that we established this when we did "Silver Bullet" but it's worth repeating. When you go up against the undead, always ALWAYS make more than one silver bullet. And when you make them, fucking shoot them.



Conclusion: I love all of the Hammer movies. Especially when they did Dracula. The Hammer Dracula movies were the first modern day horror movie series. They are always entertaining and when you put these two legends in the same movie it's always a good time. Even in this, considered to be one of the weaker installments (I don't agree), we have a solid 90 minutes of good Dracula action. It's cheap everywhere so if you come across it definitely take the time out to watch it.



Grade: 92%






The Masters. Respect the technique.

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