In the spring of 1885, Jonathan Harker arrives at Castle Dracula to take up a position as the castle's librarian. At first, there is no sign of Count Dracula or anyone else, but Harker eventually meets a lovely young woman who asks him for help, claiming she's being held prisoner. However, she retreats when Count Dracula appears to greet Harker and show him to his room, only to lock him in. Little does Dracula know that Harker has anticipated this, as he knows of the count's evil, undead nature and has come to put an end to him. But, after being released from his room, Harker falls prey to the woman from before, who's actually a vampire as well, before witnessing Dracula's monstrous nature firsthand when he attacks the woman and overpowers Harker when he tries to fight back. Passing out, Harker awakens in his room the next day, to find himself locked in once again and to discover bite marks on his neck. Knowing he's doomed to become a vampire himself, Harker escapes from his room and, after hiding his diary, heads into the castle's crypt to destroy both Dracula and the woman. He finds them both sleeping in their coffins, but Harker makes the mistake of staking the woman first, giving Dracula the opportunity to emerge from his coffin when the sun sets and trap Harker in the crypt. Some time later, Dr. Van Helsing, a colleague of Harker's, arrives in the nearby town of Klausenburg, searching for him, and gets a lead that points him in the direction of Castle Dracula. After nearly getting hit by a hearse that comes speeding out of the castle gates, carrying a coffin, Van Helsing investigates the castle and eventually finds Harker, now a vampire and resting in Dracula's coffin in the crypt. With no other choice, Van Helsing is forced to release his friend by staking him. He then delivers the news of Harker's death to Arthur and Mina Holmwood, brother and sister-in-law to Lucy, Harker's fiancee, who live in Karlstadt, but refuses to go into details, much to Holmwood's suspicion and aggravation. After Van Helsing leaves, they decide not to tell Lucy, who is ill, about Harker's death. Unbeknownst to anyone, Lucy has become Dracula's target, having bitten her once and returning to her nightly in order to continue her conversion into a vampire. While it may be too late for Lucy, Van Helsing must track down and destroy Dracula as soon as he can, before the evil count wipes out the entire Holmwood family.
With that done, Van Helsing and Holmwood join forces in hunting down and destroying Dracula, going to the border crossing at Ingolstadt to find the location of the hearse Van Helsing saw carrying the count's coffin. The information leads them to an undertaker in Karlstadt, but they find the coffin is no longer there. That evening, they also learn that Mina has fallen prey to Dracula, but Van Helsing sees it as an opportunity for them to finally find him, since he'll return to feed on her again. The two of them keep watch outside the house that night, guarding Mina's windows, but the next morning, they find that Dracula got to her again anyway, and it's only through a blood transfusion Van Helsing performs with Holmwood's help that she's saved. Later, after hearing Gerda mention that Mina had told her not to go down to the wine cellar, Van Helsing realizes Dracula's coffin is down there. By the time he finds it, Dracula has already risen and manages to briefly lock him in the cellar, though Van Helsing ensures that he won't be able to return to his coffin by placing a cross inside it. Holmwood lets him out of the cellar and the two of them learn that Dracula has fled with Mina. They chase Dracula through the night, as he rushes to get back to his castle before sunrise, where Van Helsing knows he can easily lose them in the vaults. They manage to get there just as Dracula is about to bury Mina alive and Van Helsing chases Dracula into the castle, confronting him in the library. Though he's physically no match for the count, Van Helsing manages to outwit him, first by feigning unconsciousness to give him a chance to escape his grasp, second by running across a table and tearing down the window curtains, letting the sunlight in, and finally by forming a cross out of two candlesticks, forcing Dracula into the sunlight, which destroys him.
I've said in other reviews that I prefer Count Dracula to be portrayed as a purely evil, malefic force, rather than the sympathetic, tragic character they try to make him into in certain adaptations, like the 1979 movie or Bram Stoker's Dracula, and there's no better example of this than Christopher Lee's performance in the Hammer films. This is not a Dracula who's begging for sympathy but, rather, is an unapologetically monstrous and ravenous vampire who's only interest is in satisfying his bloodlust and dispensing with those who get in his way. When you first see him when he greets Jonathan Harker at the castle, he does come off as the gracious, well-spoken host he is in the first act of Stoker's novel, but there's no doubt that this is merely a facade, given how quickly and to the point Dracula is when he gives Harker his instructions, with a detectable undercurrent of malice, as if he can just barely contain his true, evil nature. It's only in these early scenes with Harker that he speaks, suggesting that the voiceless, snarling and hissing beast we get for the rest of the movie is the true Dracula. Bestial is indeed the best way to describe Lee's Dracula, as he's a physically powerful and agile vampire, able to easily overwhlem Harker when he tries to intervene in his punishment of the vampire woman and force Van Helsing to use his wits and ingenuity in order to ultimately defeat him. He almost always has either a look of searing hatred on his face, most strikingly in the way he glares at Harker while choking him, or one of evil satisfaction, like when he sees the sun has set before Harker could stake him and when he moves in on Mina. However, he's far from a mindless brute, as he twice locks Harker in his room and then traps him in his castle's crypt, immediately heads on to Karlstadt to seek out and seduce Lucy Holmwood to make her his new vampire bride, and then does the same to Mina after Lucy's death, luring her to him and then moving his coffin into the cellar of the Holmwood house, effectively hiding right under Van Helsing and Arthur Holmwood's noses. Once he's been found out, he takes Mina with him and races back to his castle, intending to bury her alive and hide in the castle vaults, though Van Helsing is able to stop him.
As with most depictions of the count, Lee's Dracula has an air of dark sexuality about him in how he moves in, seduces, and utterly dominates the women he targets. It's heavily suggested that Dracula has quite a deviant sexual appetite, as the vampire woman tells Harker of "terrible things" he does and, after he's put her in her place for trying to feed on Harker before him, he scoops her up and makes off with her to do God knows what. Also, when Mina is seen after Dracula lured her to the undertaker's the previous night, the very happy expression on her face suggests Dracula did more than simply bite her (Terence Fisher is said to have told Melissa Stribling to look as though she'd had the best night of sex in her life). It's to the point where, as they're waiting for him, both Lucy and Mina have a mixture of excitement and nervousness about them, as being with him is clearly just as terrifying as it is thrilling. But Dracula is also quite rough with them, especially when one tries to usurp him as the "alpha," such as the vampire woman who is badly punished for going after Harker, and after he seduces Mina, he tries to bury her alive outside his castle to ensure Van Helsing and Holmwood won't be able to save her. Speaking of which, his seduction of the Holmwood women is born purely out of revenge for Harker staking the bride he had at the castle. He'd already seen Harker's picture of Lucy when he first arrived at the castle and was obviously taken with her but, after his bride's staking and his corruption of Harker, he immediately leaves for Karlstadt and takes the picture with him in order to find her and make her his new bride. While he does manage to make Lucy a vampire, Van Helsing promptly stakes her, enraging Dracula to the point where he decides to go after Mina next and hide in the Holmwood house so he can have easy access to her in order to complete the transformation.
Mina Holmwood (Melissa Stribling), while a bit more significant to the story than Elizabeth was in The Curse of Frankenstein, is still not one of the stronger characters in Dracula. Her role is very minimal during the second act of the movie, as the only significant thing she does is inform Van Helsing of Lucy's illness, leading him to examine her and discover that she's falling under Dracula's influence. He advises Mina on what steps to take in order to save Lucy but these plans ultimately fail and Lucy does end up becoming a vampire. Following Lucy's staking and Arthur Holmwood joining Van Helsing in his crusade against Dracula, Mina is kept completely in the dark about what they're doing when the two of them leave for the border crossing. While they're gone, Mina receives a message that's supposedly from her husband, telling her to meet him at the undertaker's, but it turns out to be a trap, as Dracula is waiting for her instead. When they see her the next morning, Mina suddenly has more life and pep to her than she did before, despite her somewhat pale complexion, and tells Holmwood not to fuss over her, assuring him she's perfectly fine (again, that expression on her face suggests she had quite a night with Dracula). Holmwood and Van Helsing soon learn the reason for Mina's change in attitude, as when Holmwood gives her a cross to use to protect herself, it burns her tainted hand. Knowing the danger she's in, but also that she can lead them to Dracula, the two of them keep watch over her, as they wait for the count to reappear. Unbeknownst to them, he appears to her in the house and seduces and bites her again up in her bedroom. The next morning, they find her almost dead and she only survives thanks to the blood transfusion Van Helsing administers. That night, Van Helsing discovers that Dracula's coffin is down in the cellar, forcing him to flee with Mina. He manages to reach his castle with her and tries to bury her alive, only for Van Helsing and Holmwood to arrive just in time to stop him. Mina is looked after by her husband while Van Helsing pursues Dracula, and after the vampire is destroyed, the burn mark of the cross disappears from Mina's hand, signifying that she's now free of his influence.
As revenge for Jonathan Harker staking and killing his bride, Dracula goes after his fiancee, Lucy Holmwood (Carol Marsh), who's living with her brother and sister-in-law in Karlstadt. Van Helsing arrives to tell her of Harker's death personally but Holmwood doesn't let him see her, deciding to tell her himself. However, because of her sickly condition, which has left her bedridden, they opt not to tell her right away. Though she assures them she'll be fine once Harker returns home, when they leave her for the night, it's revealed that she's fallen under the influence of Dracula when she opens the door to the terrace outside her bedroom, removes the crucifix she wears, and waits for him to come to her again, which he does. The next day, after his second visit, she's even weaker than before, and when Dr. Seward is unable to find any reason for her declining health, Mina goes to Van Helsing for a second opinion. When he sees Lucy, she mentions that she knows Harker is dead, as well as who Van Helsing is thanks to her fiancee. Upon examining her and realizing what's going on, Van Helsing has Mina put garlic flowers all around her bedroom and keep the windows closed, but Lucy, unable to take the smell, has Gerda remove the garlic and open the windows, leaving her open to another visit from Dracula. This results in her death and reanimation as a vampire, whereupon she begins stalking little Tania. After one failed attempt to get at her, Lucy lures her to the graveyard where her crypt is located. Arthur Holmwood, who went to her crypt after overhearing Tania talking about her previous encounter with Lucy, manages to stop her, but is nearly bitten himself, when Van Helsing appears and drives her back into her crypt with a crucifix. With sunrise coming, she has nowhere to escape to, giving Van Helsing the chance to stake her and release her from Dracula's evil.
Gerda (Olga Dickie), the Holmwoods' maid, makes a very fatal mistake in that, despite Mina's instructions, she removes all of the garlic from Lucy's bedroom when she complains about the smell and, as a result, dooming her by allowing Dracula to get at her again. The next morning, when Lucy is found to have died, Gerda is especially grief-stricken, blaming herself and explaining to Van Helsing what she did, as well as telling him she did ir around midnight. Gerda's young child, Tania (Janina Faye), becomes Lucy's target when she resurrects as a vampire three days later. She encounters her twice in one night, the first time being brought home by a policeman who found her alone and hysterical. When she's brought back home, she explains to Mina what happened, saying that Lucy appeared and enticed her to go on a walk with her, only to run off and leave Tania by herself at the sight of a passerby. Arthur Holmwood is especially shocked when he hears this and goes to Lucy's crypt, finding that it's empty. Later that same night, Tania is enticed outside again by Lucy, who takes her to the cemetery near her crypt in order to make her a vampire. Van Helsing comes to both her and Holmwood's rescue and is kind enough to give Tania his warm coat, as well as a crucifix to use to protect herself. After talking with Holmwood about what must be done with Lucy, Van Helsing has him take Tania home before he proceeds with the staking. Tania is never seen again, but later in the film, Gerda ends up unknowingly giving away Dracula's hiding place when she mentions that Mina told her not to go into the basement. She also witnesses Dracula taking Mina away and is almost too hysterical to tell Van Helsing and Holmwood, needing to be slapped in order to make her lucid enough to describe it.
Though a major character in the novel and most film adaptations, Dr. Seward (Charles Lloyd-Pack) has only a couple of scenes in this film, acting as Lucy Holmwood's doctor. He proves to be totally powerless to save her and is puzzled by how, even though Lucy's symptoms appear to be that of anemia, his treatments do nothing for her. He's disheartened when Tania bluntly asks him why he can't cure Lucy if he knows what's wrong with her and suggests that Mina seek out a second opinion, leading her to Van Helsing. George Woodbridge, a familiar face to fans of Hammer, appears in one scene as the innkeeper whom Van Helsing speaks with when he arrives in Klausenburg. He denies any knowledge of Jonathan Harker when Van Helsing asks about him, although the barmaid, Inga (Barbara Archer), proves him wrong when she mentions that Harker gave her a letter to post. The innkeeper becomes agitated and sends her off, telling Van Helsing it's best to leave certain things alone. When he asks about Castle Dracula, the innkeeper tells him, "You ordered a meal, sir. As the innkeeper, it's my duty to serve you. When you've eaten, I ask that you go and leave us in peace." However, when the innkeeper is out of earshot, Inga gives Van Helsing Harker's diary, which was found near the castle. The border official (George Benson), whom Van Helsing and Holmwood speak with about the final destination of the hearse carrying Dracula's coffin, is a comic relief character, one who's initially hesitant to give them the information, as it's against policy. However, Holmwood manages to bribe him into divulging it. Later, during the third act, he has to deal with Dracula smashing through the border barrier as he races back to his castle, and when he ties the two pieces back together, another carriage, this time being driven by Van Helsing and Holmwood, smashes it again. And the undertaker (Miles Malleson), whom the border official directs the two men to, comes off as a rather jolly fellow, one who makes light of his morbid job, telling them of an old man who came to pay his respects and ended up dying when he fell down a small set of steps in the back. The undertaker describes the moment as "quite amusing," commenting, "He came to pay his last respects and remained to share them."
The Gothic element that Terence Fisher and his crew established in The Curse of Frankenstein returns ten-fold in Dracula and you can tell they now had it down almost to a science. The cinematography, again the work of Jack Asher, is even better, benefiting from a slightly more lush color palette and a sort of dark veil that's often hanging over the nighttime scenes, be they interiors or exteriors. He also manages to create an instance of German Expressionism-style shadow-play in the scene where Jonathan Harker stakes the vampire woman in Dracula's crypt. For me, though, the most well-shot scenes are those set inside Lucy's crypt and the courtyard outside, which is lit with a light-blue color that evokes something of a supernatural presence in and of itself. And that moment where Arthur Holmwood enters the crypt with a lantern and sees that Lucy's coffin is empty is, to me, the very spirit of Hammer's Gothics distilled down to one simple scene. While the film's mood and atmosphere isn't quite as unsettling as that of The Curse of Frankenstein, there's still a palpable feeling of evil in the air, with Dracula's presence so strong that you could forget he actually doesn't have much screentime. The scenes that best exemplify this for me are the two times we see Lucy waiting for him in her bedroom. The first time, we see her get out of bed once Arthur and Mina Holmwood have left her for the night, open the door to the terrace, and lie on her bed, excitedly and nervously wait for Dracula's arrival. The sound of the wind outside and the shot of leaves swirling about the ground around the open doorway, coupled with James Bernard's ever-mounting music and Lucy's anticipation, lets you know that he's coming. Even more affecting is the second scene, where Lucy has Gerda throw away the garlic flowers Mina has decorated her room with. Once she's left alone, the scene from the night before repeats itself, as she anxiously waits for Dracula, watching the open door, but this time, we don't even see him arrive and feed on her, as the scene ends with a shot of clouds passing over the full moon and then comes back up on a shot of Lucy's passive face, as Dr. Seward pulls a sheet over it. You can also most definitely feel Dracula's influence in the scene at the inn in Klausenburg, where the innkeeper and the patrons are so terrified of making any sort of move against him that they refuse to give Van Helsing any sort of information. And, of course, that's to say nothing of the scenes inside his castle.
As usual, Bernard Robinson's production design proved invaluable for Hammer, with his best sets being everything involving Castle Dracula, the inside of which features long hallways, decorated with trophy heads, old swords, and other such objects; intimate, cozy bedrooms; and enormous and very elegant-looking rooms, particularly the dining room with a large staircase, dining table, and fireplace, and the library, where the climax takes place. Robinson also built the exterior of the castle on the backlot at Bray Studios, giving it some noteworthy features like several eagle statues and a tiny covered bridge that runs over a mountain stream out in front. As you can see, rather than a rundown, decaying place filled with cobwebs as it was depicted in the original Universal film, Dracula's home here is a rather spotless and somewhat inviting place, one that's accustomed to having guests, with the one exception being the dank, dark crypt near the castle's main entrance, which contains the vampires' coffins. Also, the quality of the sets is especially amazing when you remember that Robinson often redressed the same sets several times, with some of the castle interiors also being used for the basement of the Holmwood household and with the castle's main hallway, dining room, library, and even the exterior of Lucy's crypt all being the exact same stage at Bray. Speaking of the Holmwood house, where most of the movie's middle section is set, it's the typical nice-looking, well-furnished, comfortable home of a well-to-do family of the period, which makes for a nice dichotomy when it's literally invaded by Dracula's evil. The film also introduces another setting that would become a staple of Hammer's Gothics: the warm and safe inn/pub, which is often a refuge from the terror the villagers have to live with. In the case of the inn at Klausenburg, its interior is decorated with garlic in order to ensure that no vampires will come snooping around and the villagers seem to feel it's protection enough, given how they don't cooperate with Van Helsing. A couple of other noteworthy sets are the interior of Lucy's crypt, which has the same eerie vibe as the one at the castle, and the undertaker's, which I oddly like for how tightly-packed a place it is, as it's so full of coffins, with Dracula's being relegated to a corner in the back. Finally, among the actual location work, I'm sure that Hammer made use of Black Park for the scenes in the woods between the vampire Lucy and little Tania, as that was about as far from Bray as producer Anthony Hinds was willing to travel for location work.
Even nowadays, doing a totally faithful adaptation of the original Bram Stoker novel of Dracula is difficult, one, due to its rambling nature, as the story is told through various letters and diary entries, which is hard to do cinematically; two, because of its huge cast of characters; and three, because it goes in a circle across Europe, from Transylvania to England and then back to Transylvania for the ending, so you can imagine what a task it was for filmmakers in the early part of the 20th century. Given their limited funds, a 100% true adaptation was out of the question for Hammer, so screenwriter Jimmy Sangster had to simplify the story and boil it down to as concise a narrative as he could without losing the core elements. Obviously, the idea of traveling sheer across the continent was out, so he had the entire story take place in one general area, with Castle Dracula being close enough to Karlstadt to where Dracula could use a hearse to transport him back and forth within a day's time. Sangster also combined several groups of characters into one, such as having the one vampire bride rather than the three in the novel and also by having Arthur Holmwood be Van Helsing's sole aid in his fight against Dracula, as well as completely omitting characters like Renfield and Quincey Morris. The dynamics and relationships of the characters are totally switched around, with Lucy now being Jonathan Harker's fiancee and Holmwood's sister and Mina Holmwood's wife, instead of Mina being Harker's fiancee and Lucy engaged to Holmwood. And Dracula's supernatural abilities are really pared down: he doesn't turn into a bat, a wolf, a horde of rats, or a swirling mist. Amazingly, though, despite the number of liberties he took and omissions he made, this movie does work very, both as a sort of cliffnotes version of the original Dracula story, complete with the first act containing voiceover of passages from Harker's diary like in the book, and as its own entity.
The depiction of vampires here is rather groundbreaking in and of itself, as it created a number of the tropes that are still employed to this day. This was the first movie to show a major switch from seemingly normal human being to monster mode in them, with how Dracula will suddenly be sporting red, bloodshot eyes and fangs when he drops his facade. In fact, he was the first Dracula to ever have fangs, which Bela Lugosi never did, be it when he played Dracula or Armand Tesla in The Return of the Vampire. This was also one of the first vampire movies to show blood in full color (the same year that this film was released in the U.S., a movie called The Return of Dracula, which was otherwise black-and-white, featured a staking in full color as well) and to allude to how savage they are when feeding, with Lee's blood-drenched fangs in that one famous shot and the streams of blood Jonathan Harker finds running out of the bite marks on his neck after the scene in the library. While the idea had been used before, this movie showed that exposure to sunlight not only kills vampires but causes them to disintegrate, which would be expounded upon in future movies like Fright Night and John Carpenter's Vampires, which had them bursting into flames. This is could also be the first time crosses were shown to actually burn both vampires and those they had corrupted if they were touched by one (going back to Fright Night, I have to think the moment when Peter Vincent burns Ed on the forehead with a cross is a direct nod to the moment here where Van Helsing does the same to Lucy). And finally, this was really the first movie to play up the vampire's sexual angle. There was a definite air of sex appeal to Lugosi's Dracula but, for the most part, he and other movie vampires seemed to be interested in drinking blood purely as a means to keep themselves alive. Here, though, as I've gone into, Dracula seems to be interested in satisfying more than just his thirst for blood, and his victims clearly both fear and lust for him at the same time. In fact, in the scene where Dracula seduces Mina in her bedroom, there's material of him nuzzling against her face and pushing her back onto the bed, all while she has a very lustful expression on her face. This was originally cut from the film but has since been restored for the 2012 Blu-Ray release. And do I even need to say anything about how sexy Valerie Gaunt is in her low-cut dress, showing quite a bit of her amazing cleavage? Didn't think so.
In stark contrast to the revulsion and derision that critics heaped upon The Curse of Frankenstein, Dracula received very good reviews when it was originally released and a big reason for that is likely how it's not as gruesome. It's still more violent and bloody than any vampire movie made up to that point, beginning with a shot of blood dripping onto the nameplate on Dracula's coffin after the opening credits and featuring instances of blood around the vampires' mouths after they've been feeding, streams of it trickling from the bite marks on some victims, burn marks from crosses, and stakings (the restored Blu-Ray version of the movie features an extra bit of spurting blood when Van Helsing stakes Lucy), but it's still not as grisly as what was both shown and implied in The Curse of Frankenstein. Still, some of it was enough to where cuts had to be made, most significantly with Dracula's seduction of Mina and his death scene at the end of the movie. As it stood before the restoration, you got some fairly impressive special effects of his foot shriveling up and his right hand disintegrating into dust, but when he falls back into the sunlight, it originally cut straight from Van Helsing forcing him to a shot of his face having disintegrated into an ashy skull. Now, there's an extra moment of him clawing at his face, revealing rawness underneath and giving it an added gnarly feeling before you see his entire body shrivel up and crumble into dust.
After the opening credits, the movie wastes no time in getting to the point, as Jonathan Harker arrives at Castle Dracula, though is forced to walk the last bit of the journey because the coach driver refuses to take him to the castle itself. Heading inside, Harker finds the castle apparently abandoned and, walking into the dining room, finds a meal waiting for him on the table, as well as a note from Dracula, reading, "My Dear Harker, I am sorry I was unable to meet you. Eat well, make yourself comfortable." Harker spends a good deal of time there, keeping the fireplace going, and sits down at the table to write in his diary, when he accidentally knocks some dishes onto the floor. He bends down to pick them up, when someone enters behind him. Though the figure doesn't make a sound, Harker senses their presence and turns around to face a very lovely woman in a low-cut dress. He introduces himself but the woman immediately asks him to help her by taking her away, saying that Dracula is keeping her prisoner. Harker is incredulous at this and the woman, again, pleads for his help to escape, putting her hands on his shoulders. He touches one of her hands with his own, when she suddenly pulls them away and runs off. Turning, Harker is startled to see the dark figure of Dracula standing atop the stairs. Dracula makes his way down and greets Harker, welcoming him to his house. He then offers to show him to his room, carrying his bag himself, explaining that his housekeeper is away at the moment. He leads him along the landing at the top of the stairs and down a hall to another flight of stairs that leads to a door. Showing him into his room, Dracula tells Harker that he has to go out and won't be back until the following evening. After he leaves the room, Harker unpacks his small, black satchel, taking out a picture of his fiancee, a couple of books, and an ink pen. Before he can begin writing in his diary, there's a knock on the door and Dracula returns, giving him the key to the library. He then notices the picture and looks at it, asking Harker about the woman. He tells him she's his fiancee and that her name is Lucy Holmwood. Describing her as "charming," Dracula returns the picture and leaves the room. After he closes the door, Harker hears a loud click and finds that he can't open it; Dracula has locked him in. However, Harker seems to have been expecting this and calmly sits down and begins writing in his diary: "At last, I have met Count Dracula. He accepts me as a man who has agreed to work among his books, as I intended. It only remains for me now to await the daylight hours when, with God's help, I will forever end this man's reign of terror." Outside, Dracula heads into the night to prey upon the nearby village.
Some time later, Harker has fallen asleep by the fireplace in his room, when he hears someone unlock the door. Seeing the knob turn, he gets up, walks over to the door, and wrenches it open. No one is there, but when he walks out into the hallway and looks down the staircase, he sees a shadow in the doorway to the library at the bottom. Harker walks through the doorway, only to find the library seemingly empty, but when he walks in, the woman from before is revealed to be hiding behind the door. She closes it and again pleads with Harker to help her escape the castle, hinting that she's being tortured when she tells him what an evil man Dracula is and that he does horrible things. Harker agrees to help her and hugs her in a comforting embrace, as she gratefully thanks him. However, her true intention is revealed when she suddenly looks hungrily at his neck and bares her fangs before biting him. He instantly pulls away from her, when Dracula appears in a doorway across from them, snarling as his fangs drip with blood and his eyes are now an evil red. The count rushes across the room, jumping over the table, grabs the woman, and flings her to the floor. The two vampires glare at each other, when the woman tries to go for Harker again, only for Dracula to grab both of her arms and throw her back onto the floor. Harker tries to intervene when Dracula starts towards her, only for him to get tossed aside and then caught in Dracula's vice-like grip around his neck, before getting shoved down to the floor. His obstacle now out of the way, Dracula scoops the woman up in his arms and exits the room, which Harker sees before he passes out. Come daylight, Harker is back in his room, still unconscious on the bed. It isn't until very late in the day that he awakens, only to find that he's locked in again. He's about to pour himself a drink, when he realizes he has much bigger problems when he feels his neck. Looking in a small mirror he keeps in his satchel, he sees that he's been bitten and sinks down into his chair, knowing what this means. Horrified as he is, he decides to write another entry in his diary: "I have become a victim of Dracula and the woman in his power. It may be that I am doomed to be one of them. If that is so, I can only pray that whoever finds my body will possess the knowledge to do what is necessary to release my soul."
With sunset fast approaching, Harker takes his diary and a small bundle and climbs out the window to the grounds. He hides his diary in a small nook near the castle and proceeds to the crypt near the main entrance. Inside, he finds Dracula resting in a coffin next to the small staircase just beyond the door, while the woman is in a coffin across from him. Unwrapping the bundle, he reveals it to be a small handful of stakes and a small mallet. Placing the point of one of the stakes over the woman's heart, Harker drives it in. She lets out a scream that awakens Dracula and he looks towards Harker with an expression of rage on his face. He then sees the sunlight coming through a nearby window fade, meaning the sun has set completely, and he smiles evilly at this (though, why would he have such a window in his crypt, especially since he and the woman sleep in exposed coffins?). As the woman's cries die off, it's revealed that, in death, she has turned into an old hag. Harker prepares to do the same to Dracula, but then finds that his coffin is empty. Terrified, he looks up at the entrance and sees Dracula's shadow pass over the wall behind it before he appears in the doorway. Harker drops the stake and helplessly backs away into a corner, as Dracula closes the door behind him, ensuring that Harker is doomed. (Seriously, why would you not stake Dracula first?)
The second act begins with Dr. Van Helsing's arrival at the inn in Klausenburg. Though he's unable to get any information out of the innkeeper, when he's waiting for his meal to be brought out to him, Inga, the barmaid, slips him a parcel she says was found at the crossroads near Castle Dracula. When Van Helsing unwraps it, he finds it's Harker's diary, giving him further incentive to head up to the castle. Upon arrival, he's nearly run down by a hearse that comes roaring through the gates, carrying a large, white coffin. He then rushes inside the castle, searching and calling for Harker, and finds his way into what was Harker's room, which has been totally ransacked. He finds Harker's items still there, but on the floor, he finds the smashed picture frames that contained Lucy's photos, with only the corner of one of the photos remaining. Knowing the implication, Van Helsing heads back outside, when he spots the open door to the crypt off to the right of the entrance. Venturing inside, he finds the shriveled corpse of the staked woman in the one coffin, but when he looks in the one that once housed Dracula, he's horrified to see Harker lying there, now completely turned into a vampire. Finding the stake and hammer that he dropped on the floor, Van Helsing prepares to fulfill Harker's final wish to free his soul.
Van Helsing goes to Karlstadt and tells the Holmwoods of Harker's death, though Arthur Holmwood, who's irked at the vagueness of his explanation, decides to break the news to Lucy himself. But, that night, they opt not to tell her just yet, due to her ill condition. They leave her, but once they've gone, she gets up and, after listening at the door, locks it. She then opens the door to the terrace outside her bedroom, removes the crucifix she wears around her neck, puts it in a drawer in her nightstand, and lies on the bed, waiting both excitedly and nervously for the arrival of Dracula, who's already bitten her once. Elsewhere, in his hotel room, Van Helsing is going over his research on vampirism, which he has recorded on a phonograph, and enters some new data, ending with, "Since the death of Jonathan Harker, Count Dracula, the propagater of this unspeakable, has disappeared. He must be found, and destroyed." The film then immediately cuts to a close-up of Dracula standing in the doorway to Lucy's bedroom. He enters and make his way to the side of her bed, smiling evilly, and stops and looks down on her for a moment before descending on her.
The next day, with Lucy's condition having worsened and Dr. Seward unable to do much to help, Mina decides to seek a second opinion. The arrival of a letter from Van Helsing prompts her to go see him in his hotel room. Though she's there to receive some of Harker's items, she tells Van Helsing of Lucy's illness, which came on suddenly ten days before and which Seward believes is anemia. Hearing this, Van Helsing decides to see Lucy himself. When he does, he learns that she knows of Harker's death, though no one told her. Examining her and noticing the marks on her neck, he immediately knows what's going on and promises her she'll be well again. Leaving the room with Mina, Van Helsing tells her to keep all the windows in Lucy's room shut during the hours between sunset and sunrise and to put garlic flowers all throughout the room, insisting they not be removed at night for any reason. Seeing the incredulous look on her face, Van Helsing tells her, "I cannot impress upon you strongly enough how important it is you obey my instructions. Do exactly as I say, and we may be able to save her; if you don't, she will die." With that, he leaves and says he'll return in the morning. That night, Lucy is unable to take the smell of all the garlic in her room and swipes one of the two vase of it by her bedside to the floor. Gerda, the maid, hears the sound of the vase smashing and rushes into the room. Lucy implores her to remove the garlic and open the windows, despite what Mina said, and Gerda, being the motherly woman she is, complies. She opens the terrace doors again, removing all of the garlic around it, and leaves the room, as Lucy, again, anxiously awaits Dracula's appearance. Come the next morning, Lucy is dead, much to the horror of everyone else, and when Van Helsing arrives and sees what has happened, he confronts Mina about it. Gerda then tearfully admits it was her fault and that it happened around midnight. Holmwood dismisses her and tells Van Helsing to leave them for good. In response, he tells Holmwood that he's decided to allow him to learn the details of Harker's death for himself, leaving his diary with them to that end before departing.
One evening several days later, the Holmwoods are surprised when Gerda comes to them and tells them a policeman has appeared with Tania. The policeman is led into their sitting room and tells the Holmwoods that he found Tania, by herself and hysterical. Tania is reluctant to tell them what happened but Mina gets her to talk and she tells her that, while she was out by herself, someone had her join them for a walk, only to suddenly leave her alone. Mina asks her who it was and, to everyone's shock, she answers, "Aunt Lucy." Holmwood is especially taken aback by this, so much so that, later that night, he goes to Lucy's crypt and finds the coffin empty. Elsewhere, Tania wanders through the woods and meets Lucy, now a full-fledged vampire, who had called to her. She promises to take Tania somewhere quiet where they can "play" and leads her through the woods. Back at the crypt, Holmwood keeps up a vigil and is stunned when Lucy arrives with Tania. Just as it looks like Lucy is about to bite Tania, Holmwood calls to her. Lucy is actually happy to see him, asking him why he didn't come sooner, and goes in for a "kiss." That's when Van Helsing arrives, brandishing a cross, and forces Lucy back. He corners her and touches her forehead with the cross, burning the figure of it into her flesh and causing her to let out a piercing shriek. Lucy retreats back into her crypt, while Van Helsing sees to the frightened Tania, giving her his coat to keep her warm, as well as a cross for added protection, before going to talk with Holmwood (Janina Faye said that Peter Cushing tried to keep the left side of the coat's collar up when he put it around her but it kept falling and, indeed, after he walks away, it slacks off considerably). Inside, he finds Holmwood, totally distraught, and when he asks why Lucy has been targeted, Van Helsing explains that Dracula means to replace the bride Harker killed with her. He then suggests they allow Lucy to lead them to Dracula but Holmwood can't stand the thought of it. Van Helsing tells him to take Tania home and meet him back at the crypt within an hour.
Later, when the two of them have met up again at the crypt, Van Helsing goes to stake Lucy, when Holmwood stops him, aghast at the horrific manner in which she must be freed. Van Helsing tells him, "Please try and understand. This is not Lucy, the sister you loved. It's only a shell, possessed and corrupted by the evil of Dracula. To liberate her soul and give it eternal peace, we must destroy that shell for all time." With that, Holmwood allows him to go through with it. Just as Harker had done with the woman at Castle Dracula, Van Helsing stands over Lucy's coffin, places a stake over her heart, and pounds it into her. Lucy's screams as the stake jams into her, with blood spurting out, is almost too much for Holmwood to take, as he grasps at his stomach and then butts up against the wall behind him. Her screams then turn into moans and finally, she becomes silent altogether. Walking away from the coffin and wiping up the blood that splattered on his hand, Van Helsing guides Holmwood over to the coffin, where he sees the look of peace on Lucy's face, as well as that the burn mark from the cross has gone, confirming that she's been released from Dracula's influence. Seeing this, Holmwood is able to smile lightly and come to terms with what's happened.
With Holmwood now firmly on his side, Van Helsing tells him what he knows of vampires and of the hearse that he believes was carrying Dracula in his coffin, adding they must go to the border at Ingolstadt in order to learn where the hearse went. They go there that night, but have trouble with the official on duty, who says he can't give them such information without proper authority. Back at Karlstadt, a young man visits the Holmwood house and tells Mina that someone claiming to be her husband said that she's to go to 49 Frederickstrasse without telling anyone. At that moment, Holmwood finally gets the official to tell them what they want to know through bribery, and the address turns out to be 49 Frederickstrasse, which is an undertaker's office. Mina arrives there and rings the bell at the front, but receives no answer. That's when she notices a light on beyond the ajar door of the actual morgue and is drawn there, calling for her husband. She finds the place to be full of coffins but sees no one there. But, as she stands by one coffin, the lid slowly moves aside, revealing a waiting Dracula. The next morning, at the Holmwood house, Holmwood and Van Helsing are about to go the undertaker's office, only to get a slight scare when Gerda tells Holmwood that Mina isn't up in her room. Their fears are alleviated when Mina shows up, saying she went for a walk in the garden. Holmwood tells her he and Van Helsing have to go out again and, after questioning her about her pale complexion, which she tells him not to worry about, the two men leave. At the undertaker's, they're led to the back of the morgue, only for the undertaker himself to be stunned when he sees the coffin they were asking about is no longer there.
That night, back at the Holmwood house, Van Helsing and Holmwood try to figure out where Dracula may have fled to, trying to keep their voices down, as Mina is sitting nearby, doing some knitting. They plan to go investigate St. Joseph's, a graveyard that's not too far from there, and Holmwood asks Mina to wear a cross while he's away. She's visibly uncomfortable at the sight of it and tries to say that she can't, but at his insistence, she allows him to put in her arm. She immediately seizes up in pain and gasps before fainting to the floor. The two men rush to her, checking for what happened, when Van Helsing pulls the cross out of her clutched hand, revealing a burn mark on her palm. Later, after they've taken Mina up to her room, Holmwood blames himself for not having gone along with the plan to have Lucy lead them to Dracula. Van Helsing, however, says that now, Mina can be the one to lead them to him and that they'll protect her as much as they can by standing guard outside of the house that night. Nightfall finds the two of them keeping watch outside her bedroom windows, but little do they know that inside, Mina walks out of her bedroom to find Dracula standing at the bottom of the stairs. As she stands there, he makes his way up to her and walks her back into the bedroom, closing the door behind him. She sits back on her bed, as he looks at her with a hungry smile, before clutching her neck and nuzzling her face. He then leans her back on the bed and goes in for the bite. Outside, Holmwood is startled by the sound of a screech owl in a tree but then breathes a sigh of relief and looks up at Mina's window before going back to his vigil.
Coming in the next morning, the two men are sure Mina is safe for now and prepare to get some rest for the next night. Holmwood heads up to Mina's bedroom, only to shout her name, sending Van Helsing running up after him. He runs into the room to find Mina slumped across the bed, fresh blood streaming from bite marks on her neck. With Gerda's assistance, Van Helsing performs a blood transfusion using Holmwood as the donor, managing to save her just in time. Once it's done, he sends Holmwood downstairs, telling him to drink plenty of fluids, and examines Mina before telling Gerda to bathe her forehead with some cologne. That evening, Van Helsing joins Holmwood down in the sitting room, telling him that Mina has taken to the transfusion quite well. The two of them wonder how Dracula could have gotten into the house without them seeing him, when Gerda comes down to tell them that Mina is resting. Holmwood decides to go up and watch over her, telling Gerda to get some wine from the cellar for Van Helsing. Gerda, however, is reluctant to do so, saying that Mina told her the other day that she shouldn't go down to the cellar, no matter what. Hearing this, Van Helsing bolts up off the couch and runs to the cellar door. Opening it, he finds Dracula's coffin down there and runs to it. He opens the lid to find it empty, only for Dracula to appear at the doorway and shut him in. Placing a cross inside the coffin, Van Helsing pounds on the cellar door and yells for Holmwood, who eventually hears him and lets him out. The two of them then hear Gerda scream upstairs and rush up there, with Van Helsing jumping over the stairs' railing. There, they find a hysterical Gerda whom Van Helsing has to slap to get her to explain what happened; she says that Dracula took Mina with him into the night. Van Helsing tells Holmwood the only place Dracula can head for now is his castle and they head out to try to intercept him.
Following Dracula's trail in a carriage, Van Helsing and Holmwood come across the body of a coachman on the side of the road. Examining the body, Van Helsing determines he's been dead for half an hour before the two of them get back on the road. Van Helsing tells Holmwood that he's sure Dracula killed the coachman in order to get back to his castle before sunrise. He also adds that if Dracula beats them to the castle, he could hide in the maze-like vaults beneath it for years. Ahead of them, Dracula makes the horses go as fast as they possibly can, smashing right through the border barrier at Ingolstadt, much to the official's chagrin, who yells at him, only to get caught up in a coughing fit as a result. And he's no sooner tied the two broken parts back together when Van Helsing and Holmwood come through, ignoring his yelling at them to stop and smash it again. The sun starts to rise when the two of them reach the road to Klausenburg and Castle Dracula. At the castle, Dracula has dug a large pit on the grounds and places Mina in it. She wakes up and screams as he starts throwing dirt on her, intending to bury her alive. That's when Van Helsing and Holmwood arrive and spot him. Holmwood runs to Mina, while Van Helsing chases Dracula into the castle.
Dracula heads to the main room and up the stairs, with Van Helsing in hot pursuit. The count heads to the library and attempts to open a hatch that leads down into the vaults. Van Helsing almost loses him and heads up to what was Harker's room, but then takes the door into the library. With no time to climb down into the vaults, Dracula grabs a large candlestick and throws it at Van Helsing, who dodges it, only to then get grabbed by the throat. Dracula wrestles him to the floor and squeezes him until he apparently loses consciousness. Baring his fangs, Dracula goes in for a bite, only for Van Helsing's eyes to snap open and kick him off. Dracula slowly stalks towards Van Helsing, who backs away and glances at the curtain covering the window at the end of the table. He jumps on the table, runs down the length of it, and jumps and grabs the curtains, pulling them down and allowing the sunlight to pour in. Dracula's leg is caught in the beam of sunlight and he yells in pain as it starts to disintegrate. Seeing that he's attempting to crawl away, Van Helsing quickly grabs two candlesticks and puts them together as a makeshift cross. Dracula recoils at the sight of it and accidentally plants his right hand in the sunlight, causing it to disintegrate into dust, as he gasps. Van Helsing then forces the helpless vampire to lean back completely into the sunlight. He grimaces as he watches Dracula cover his face before clawing at it, ripping off pieces of decaying flesh before his face turns into nothing but dust and his entire body deflates and disintegrates. Outside, the burn mark on Mina's hand disappears, indicating she's free from Dracula, while inside, the vampire has been reduced to nothing but his empty clothes and a pile of dust on the floor. Van Helsing watches as a gust of wind from the open window blows away the bit of dust that was once Dracula's hand, leaving behind only the ring he was wearing.
James Bernard's score for Dracula could very well be the best work he ever did for Hammer and, perhaps, his entire career. As with his main title for The Curse of Frankenstein, the one he composed for this film hits you as soon as the movie begins, with its pounding, overwhelmingly sinister and evil sound and the distinctive leitmotif that literally says "Dra-cu-la" (in fact, even though the movie's alternate title of Horror of Dracula was only thought up for the American release, you could easily hear the motif saying that as well). You hear that theme constantly throughout the film, either when Dracula is onscreen or in a more subtle, ethereal version that suggests his presence, such as when Jonathan Harker first arrives at the castle. Similarly, the music Bernard comes up with for the suspenseful and terror-filled scenes are relentlessly hard-hitting and freakish, and the same goes for the action scenes, which are scored to be really pulse-pounding and exciting. The confrontation between Dracula and Harker in the library sounds more horrific to get across how outmatched Harker is by the count, whereas the scenes with Van Helsing during the climax are on the genuinely thrilling side, particularly the final confrontation, where the music doesn't let up until Dracula has been defeated. There are also less overwhelming pieces that Bernard came up with to personify the effect Dracula has on his female victims, with an otherworldly, melodic sound accompanied by an ever-building string backup during the scenes where Lucy waits for him to appear and also when Dracula seduces Mina in her bedroom. There are even some genuinely beautiful and poignant-sounding parts of the score, such as the theme in the crypt after Van Helsing has staked Lucy. The music starts off soft and kind of sad, then builds into a lovely flourish when Holmwood sees that his sister is free from the evil that had taken possession of her. And the music that plays at the very end of the movie has a bittersweet sound to it, appropriate given how, on the one hand, Dracula has been defeated, but still, he's left a lot of pain and despair in his wake and those who've lived through this ordeal while likely be marked by it for the rest of their lives.
Whether you see the more familiar American print with the Horror of Dracula title or the 2012 British restoration version, there's no denying that Hammer's Dracula is nothing short of superlative. It's one of those movies that works on all accounts: great acting all-around, especially by Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, efficient and precise direction by Terence Fisher, some of the best Gothic art direction Hammer ever had, wonderful instances of mood and atmosphere, a truly awesome score by James Bernard, and, above everything else, an effectively streamlined way of telling the age-old Dracula story that races briskly through its 82-minute running time without losing any of its impact or effectiveness. Honestly, if you were to ask me what Hammer movies I would recommend you watch if you could only see a small handful, it's very likely I would go with The Curse of Frankenstein, The Curse of the Werewolf (one of my absolute favorites), and this, as it doesn't get much better than this little "trilogy."
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