Horror of Dracula

Director: Terence Fisher

1958 / 82min / 35mm

Christopher Lee joined Max Schreck and Bela Lugosi in the Screen Vampires Hall of Fame with this, his first appearance as a regally seductive Count Dracula, facing off for the first but far from the last time against Peter Cushing’s Doctor Van Helsing. An infusion of fresh blood—quite literally, in the sanguinary opening credits—for Bram Stoker’s well-thumbed tale of the macabre, by turns elegant and frightfully visceral. Along with The Curse of Frankenstein, Horror of Dracula was decisive in Hammer’s turn to Gothic horror, embraced by thrill-loving audiences around the world, though not the reviewer of the Daily Telegraph, who sniffed: “This British film has an X certificate. This is too good for it. There should be a new certificate—‘S’ for sadistic or just ‘D’ for disgusting.”

Distributor: Warner Bros

Part of Terence Fisher: Hammer's Master Smith