Okay, Hammer experts.....come forth!

[ManchestrMorgue]

Horror of Dracula was a film that always eluded me until a few years ago. I remember it being played on TV a long time ago in Australia (before VCR's were available) and unfortunately I missed it.

It became one of the films that I most wanted to see - it was never available locally on VHS (as far as I am aware) even though many of the other Hammer Dracula films were.

So I finally got to see it when it got a DVD release. I had built it up a lot in my own mind, but I wasn't disappointed. I still think it is one of Hammer's best, and so different to the Dracula films that came after it.

[crabapple]

Same for me with Amicus' "The House That Dripped Blood"--I was unable to see it until it came out on DVD. When I did get to see it, it was as good as I was hoping it was.

[ManchestrMorgue]

Amicus made excellent portmanteau movies, and The House that Dripped Blood is no exception. Then again, it's hard to dislike anything that Ingrid Pitt is in..

[crabapple]

Well, how to I sum this up really simply...okay. That movie would've been okay had Ingrid Pitt not been in it. But Ingrid Pitt definitely did not hurt that movie!

[crabapple]

Aha, I think the question is partially answered. Apparently, that IS supposed to be Harker in the photo, and the dummy was made for a shot that was in the film originally but cut from all English-language releases. So there may be, say, a Japanese print of the film out there that has this...somewhere...

[mictlan]

Crabapple, I think you have the answer. I read in an old Hammer interview (many moons ago) that Hammer did slightly different edits for the UK, US, and Japan.

The example given was the staking scene. In the UK, Dracula was bloodlessly staked and, sleeping, turned to dust. In the US, he'd bleed a bit and wake up while they hammered it in, then turn to dust. In Japan, he'd get staked, jump up, fangs bared and blood spurting, then they'd hold him down and pound it in.

I remember being very disappointed the first time I saw Horror of Dracula that the Jonathan Harker scene in the photo wasn't in the film.

I wonder if there is a Japanese version on DVD?

[crabapple]

I was thinking the same, that a Japanese copy might feature perhaps more than one scene we didn't see in the US or the UK. I would like to see a bit more or Harker's demise or Dracula's demise.

The scene with the Harker dummy was supposedly very brief, to very quickly show a basic idea of what happens to a vampire when you kill it; a second or two. This gives us some idea of what will happen to Dracula when Van Helsing vanquishes him...

Dracula's disintegration scene still survives in the English language versions but trimmed down; there is at least one long juicy shot of Lee as Dracula with his skin starting to disintegrate-- as we have seen in photos but not in the movie.

[zwoti]

Originally posted by mictlan

I wonder if there is a Japanese version on DVD?

http://www.play-asia.com/paOS-13-71-...1bd2-43-9.html

[crabapple]

AWESOME. thanks!!!!!

although I have my concerns that this video is the English speaking cut...and not mastered from Japanese prints. The running time in this ad says 81 minutes--a minute shorter than the American DVD. Very weird...

I wonder if, for example, there is an old Japanese laserdisc out there, or better still, a faded old theatrical print of the movie...

[crabapple]

This is really my favorite Dracula film by the way and always has been. Dracula: Prince of Darkness was a good sequel, and it looked great, and it was in widescreen...it was really NICE, but Lee had no dialogue, and he did very little besides attacking a few people...he is not the vengeful, plotting Dracula from Horror of Dracula. The first Hammer Dracula is very solid.

The thing I liked abour Dracula: Prince 0f Darkness was Philip Latham as Dracula's evil right-hand guy, Klove. That guy was flipped out. In another movie he would have been the main baddie, in this one he's sort of Dracula's opening act.