Powerful

Good start, but then it gets ruined

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

A very good follow up to "Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968)"... "Taste the Blood" picks up exactly where "Risen" left off.The merchant Weller has found the dried blood of Dracula and his friend Lord Courtley wants to bring back his master. They meet 3 gentlemen in a brothel that is bored with their lives and talks them into buying a few of Dracula's belongings. The men go to an abandoned church and turn it into the devil's sanctuary, preform a ritual that the 3 bored men refuses to finish... a refusal that leaves Dracula's servant Lord Courtley dead. When Dracula is resurrected he vows revenge on the 3 men that took the life of Courtley.There is plenty of blood and gore in this film... it's not nearly as bloody and gory as today's films because the movie also has a very interesting story to tell and not a gore-fest! 9/10

"Taste the Blood of Dracula!" Now that's a title that doesn't mess around! Anyway, the plot: Picking up minutes where the last one left off, a British businessman wanders by just as Dracula is dying. Taking his cape, broach, and a vile of his blood, the man returns to England. Meanwhile, a group of four idle old men spend their nights in brothels. Looking for further experiences, they team up with young Lord Courtley, a budding Satanist. All four get together to revive Dracula, who Courtley is seemingly a big fan of. After the other men refuse, Courtley drinks the Count's blood and dies. Dracula is reborn through his corpse. Alive again, the Count goes after the four men in a poorly defined quest for revenge."Taste the Blood of Dracula" was released in 1970. By that point, Hammer was starting to loose ground to more explicit horror films. The film is a good example of how the loosening censors of the time and the studio's need to catch up with other companies. "Taste" is sexier, bloodier, and darker then previous Dracula films. The thrill seekers' late night visit to a brothel provides plenty of titillation and some briefly glimpsed female nudity. When Dracula bites a female victim, the sexual subtext of the act is more obvious then ever before as the girl seems to have an orgasm. As for the violence, aside from the dripping goblet of bubbling Dracula blood, we see a shovel wound to a head in close-up detail, shootings, stabbings, and easily the most graphic impalement ever seen in one of these films. For extra points, a living human is staked, proving that procedure works just as well on the living as it does the dead.The movie is darker in tone too. While Dracula's always been the Prince of Darkness, this is the first in the series to explicitly reference the Count's Satanic roots. Actually, quite a lot of attention is paid to Satanism and the dark arts. Predicting what would happen in the eighties with the famous slasher villains, "Taste the Blood of Dracula" is obviously on the vampire's side. The four men he's hunting down are a despicable lot. Geoffrey Keen's William Hargood is a hypocrite who spends the night in whore houses but forbids his daughter from going out. He's also an alcoholic who, in one drunken scene, attempts to whip his daughter with a riding crop. The other two are cowardly jerks who are more then willing to let a murder just happen. The audience is rooting for Drac to take these a-holes out.As is commonplace by now, the script was written so that Christopher Lee would have as small a role as possible. Originally, he wasn't even supposed to be in the movie. The first half of the film focuses on the wicked old men and how they eventually resurrect the Count. Even if the thrill seekers are unpleasant folks, this part of the film packs in enough cheap thrills to keep you watching. More over, Hammer assembles another great cast. Ralph Bates, especially, tears it up as the wicked Courtley. Keen is seriously hate-able while Peter Sallis and John Carson are slightly more sympathetic as the other two members. After all that build-up, it's a blast watching the Count work his way through the cast.After the Thriller Seekers are eliminated, "Taste the Blood of Dracula" falls into a less interesting pattern. As is the way by now, Dracula targets young women. In this case, he hypnotizes Alice, the daughter of Hargood, and bites another girl named Lucy, this one being the daughter of Peter Sallis' character. Instead of getting his hands dirty, Dracula has the girls do his work for him. (Linda Hayden and Isla Blair both look nice in the low-cut gowns, providing the required amount of heaving bosoms.) Once the fathers are gone, Alice's boyfriend – another guy named Paul – sets about saving her from the Count. This leads to one of the lamest endings in the Hammer cannon. Dracula had set up camp in a desecrated church, which was maybe not the best decision. Paul adds all the crosses back to the church, re-blessing the place, all under Dracula's nose. Upon realizing that his crib is covered with Christian symbols, Drac freaks out, falls off a balcony, and turns to dust. Not the most dignified way for the greatest vampire in the world to go.The film was directed by Peter Sasdy, a minor Hammer director who also handled "Countess Dracula" and "Hands of the Ripper." (In addition to Brit-horror cult classic "The Stone Tape," which I keep meaning to check out.) Sasdy is not as good at building tension as Terence Fisher nor as flashy as Freddie Francis. Indeed, Sasdy's direction is probably why "Taste the Blood of Dracula" is the first Hammer-Drac flick to lack any scares what so ever. But Sasdy has his moment. The guy throws in some British fog. The graveyard and old church sets all look fantastic. Sasdy shows a decent use of shadow and I like how he shines a light on Lee's face, bringing the Lugosi film to mind."Taste the Blood of Dracula," awesome title and all, is probably the weakest of Hammer's Dracula films thus far. After getting off to a decent start, the film really falters in its second half and wraps up on a seriously disappointing ending. Yet it still maintains the Hammer house style and provides the fun viewers are looking for.

Hammer did nine Dracula or vampire films from 1958 to 1974:Horror of Dracula (1958); The Brides of Dracula (1960); Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966); Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968); Taste the Blood of Dracula (1969); Scars of Dracula (1970); Dracula AD 1972 (1972); The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973); and The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1974).Of these nine entries "Taste the Blood of Dracula" is, believe it or not, one of the best, if not the best.One of the most intriguing aspects of the story is "the circle" of three Affluent British thrill-seekers. Once a month they secretly meet together to taste of life's taboo activities. Enter Lord Courtley, an Aleister Crowley-type servant of darkness. Ralph Bate's performance as Courtley is one of the highlights of the film; he's utterly twisted, diabolic, maniacal, self-centered and arrogant -- a great character to love to hate! Courtley offers the ultimate fiendish thrill to the circle of friends.Geoffrey Keen plays the hypocritical William Hargood, who puts up the pretense of being a respectable, church-going aristocrat. His ill-treatment of his sweet, beautiful daughter Alice, played by Linda Hayden, is incredibly infuriating and reprehensible. It also proves that he's a counterfeit. (Thankfully, he gets his comeuppance).The sequence where Courtley and the circle of three 'taste the blood of Dracula' is ingenious, not to mention utterly horrific. Commendations to screenwriter Anthony Hinds! This, of course, leads to the resurrection of the ol' Count."Taste the Blood of Dracula" is completely lush in Gothic atmosphere, plus the set-up of the story is engrossing and refreshingly innovative.The only problem I had is that it's kinda hard to buy Dracula's vengeful attitude toward the murder of his supposed servant (Courtley). Isn't Dracula the Prince of EVIL? Why would he care about Courtley? Wasn't Courtley's death the necessary catalyst to the Count's resurrection? Isn't Dracula a use-em-and-leave-em type of guy? Then again, maybe it's an issue of pride and isn't Dracula a servant of the devil, whose downfall was his great arrogance? Also, maybe I'm not up on my 60's/70's vampire lore, but why did Dracula fail to convert Alice to the ranks of the undead? He obviously mesmerizes her to do his bidding, yet he fails to ever taste of her sweet blood (although he attempts to at the very end). By contrast he converts Alice's friend right away. This doesn't make sense.CONCLUSION: "Taste the Blood of Dracula" is definitely one of the best in the Hammer Dracula series, it blows away the sequels "Dracula, A.D. 1972" and the godawful "Satanic Rites of..." Don't miss out if you get the chance.GRADE: A-

It's funny how I really wasn't into this movie at first but still ended up really liking it! Thing that makes this movie a bit unusual and different is that it's being a part of the Hammer studios Dracula series but it really doesn't feel or look like a Hammer movie at all! Director Peter Sasdy did an handful of movies for the Hammer studios but only in its later years and he never impressed with any. He obviously wasn't that accustomed to its approach and style of film-making, or perhaps he simply really preferred to do his own thing. But anyway, if you're really into Hammer films, just prepare yourself for something totally different. You might end up disliking it at first, just as I did but don't give up on it! It's really a worthwhile and original enough little horror movie. I can also honestly say that this was the best movie I had seen, that got directed by Peter Sasdy.The movie and story all first starts out as something very simplistic and formulaic but as the movie goes along, you actually start to realize how great its premise is. It has a premise that really adds to the movie its tension and for once isn't all about Dracula and the horror that he does. It might very well be true that this movie would have a better reputation if it didn't featured the character of Dracula in it, since this movie really doesn't feel like a typical Dracula movie at all and its story and atmosphere perhaps called for something totally different, outside of the Dracula universe.And as often is the case with these late Hammer Dracula movies, Dracula himself is hardly in it at all. It was because Christopher Lee got fed up with the role and was also afraid he was going to get typecast because of it, for the rest of his life. He still needed a paycheck, so he kept on playing the character for a couple of years, under the condition that his role got limited down and in some cases he doesn't even have any lines. In this movie he does still speak however and once more shows why he was such a great and charismatic Dracula at the time.It's the more slower sort of horror movie, which doesn't really work out that great for the movie at first but about halfway through it picks up some more pace and things start to get far more interesting and original. It's then that the movie suddenly starts to take form and makes its intension clear. It also provides the movie with some really solid horror moments and the movie has a very constant horror like atmosphere to it as well, that really adds to the tension and mystery of the overall movie.Once you start to realize that this isn't being your average formulaic and simplistic Dracula production, the movie becomes surprisingly good, effective and original to watch!7/10 http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/