Dracula Has Risen from the Grave

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Dracula Has Risen from the Grave is a 1968 British horror film directed by Freddie Francis for Hammer Films. It stars Christopher Lee as the Count, with support from Rupert Davies, Veronica Carlson, Barry Andrews, Barbara Ewing, Ewan Hooper and Michael Ripper.

The world of the film is far darker and more ambiguous than the Christian-influenced world created by director Terence Fisher for the previous three films in the Dracula series.

[edit] Plot

The film opens in a middle-European village still in the throes of Dracula's reign of terror, where an altar boy discovers the body of a woman stuffed in the church's bell. She is another victim of Dracula, and the village - which Dracula's castle overlooks - is terrified.

A year after Dracula has been destroyed, a Monsignor (Davies) comes to the village on a routine visit, only to find the altar boy is now a mute. The villagers refuse to use the church because "the shadow of his castle touches it". And the Priest has apparently lost his faith. To bring to an end the villagers' fears that Dracula still lives, the Monsignor volunteers to go up to the Castle himself, and sanctify it. The Priest joins him, but stops halfway up the mountain and lets the Monsignor continue alone.

However, as the Monsignor exorcises the castle and attaches a large metal cross to its doors, a storm brews, and the Priest becomes scared. He tries to run back down the mountain, but falls and is knocked out, cutting his head on a rock. The blood trickles into a frozen stream, through a crack in the melting ice, and onto the lips of the preserved body of Count Dracula, which brings it back to life.

The Monsignor goes back to the village, believing that the Priest had already returned safely, and he assures the villagers that Dracula has been dealt with, and the castle sanctified to protect them from its evil. He then returns to his home city of Carlsbad.

Unbeknownst to the Monsignor, the Priest is now under the control of the resurrected Count. Furious that the cross has been erected, preventing him from returning to his castle, Dracula demands to know who is responsible. The Priest leads Dracula to Carlsbad, in pursuit of the Monsignor. There Dracula finds a new victim - the Monsignor's beautiful niece (Carlson).

[edit] Production

This was the first of the Hammer Dracula films to be shot at Elstree Studios in London.

The film was photographed by Arthur Grant using colored filters belonging to director Freddie Francis, also a cameraman by trade, who had used them when photographing The Innocents (1961). Whenever Dracula (or his castle) was in a scene, the edges of the frame were tinged a dark yellow-brown.

In Australia, this was the first of the Hammer Draculas to be passed by the censors, the previous films - Horror of Dracula (1958) and Dracula, Prince of Darkness (1966) - having been banned. The film was slightly trimmed and ran for a three-week season at Sydney's Capitol theatre in January 1970.

[edit] External links

• Dracula Has Risen from the Grave at the Internet Movie Database

Hammer Dracula films
Dracula Dracula (1958) | The Brides of Dracula (1960) | Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966) | Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968) | Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970) | Scars of Dracula (1970) | Dracula AD 1972 (1972) | The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973)