mlraymond Review of Taste the Blood of Dracula

Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970)

Thrill-seeking Victorian gentlemen sorry they thought a black magic ritual would be fun

[7/10 · 19 October 2006]

This film is so different from the late fifties to mid sixties style of Dracula films directed by Terence Fisher, it might have been made by another studio than Hammer. The grand, theatrical flair that Fisher brought to all his movies is missing, but instead we get a very believable set of characters amid some realistic surroundings. Some of the exterior shots are simply exquisite, and the interior of the abandoned church is a tremendously effective set. It's hard to explain just what makes it work so well, but the acting, editing and cinematography and music are all so perfectly brought together in the black mass scene that it is startlingly believable. Two of the three men with a shared guilty secret are played particularly well.John Carson as Jonathan Secker is so good, you wonder why he's never been seen in anything else. Geoffrey Keen carries most of the film as one of the most unlikable characters ever put on screen, and he does it so well that he never comes off as a cardboard villain, but a believable human being. His William Hargood ranges from stern and controlling with his daughter,to contemptuous of his friends, to near hysteria and binge drinking after the trio's search for perverse fun has ended in a man's death. It is a remarkable, though hateful characterization. Special mention must be made of two other players:Ralph Bates as the sneering, vain, upper class twit with a taste for the macabre, and Roy Kinnear as the Englishman who finds and then nervously keeps Count Dracula's relics for sale. Christopher Lee unfortunately has little to do but glare menacingly at other characters and utter dire pronouncements , but he is used effectively in scenes in which Dracula seems almost a liberator of the young people from their oppressive fathers. This film has a fascination all its own. The youthful cast are very appealing and the dialog is well thought out. This film might disappoint viewers expecting a more typical Terence Fisher Dracula movie than Peter Sasdy gives us, but it is a moody and effective Gothic piece well worth seeing by horror fans.