Dracula Reborn: How Hammer’s ‘Horror of Dracula’ Redefined Vampires

By the middle of the 1950s, gothic horror was dead. Modern-set films dealing with nuclear war, radioactive fallout, and the Red Scare filled American theaters with giant bugs and body snatchers. England’s Hammer Studios was no different, releasing successful films like The Quatermass Xperiment (1955) and X the Unknown (1956), which were firmly rooted in these science fiction-based fears. In 1957, however, they took a gamble and single-handedly resurrected the gothic monster movie with The Curse of Frankenstein, which became an international hit. The following year they outdid themselves by resurrecting the King of Vampires. Horror of Dracula (simply titled Dracula in England) completely redefined the character, and indeed the entire vampire subgenre, for a generation, and its influence would echo through the decades to come.

By 1958, Tod Browning’s Dracula, with Bela Lugosi in the starring role, had become deeply ingrained in popular culture. The 1957 debut of Shock Theater, the package of classic horror movies sold to various American television markets, only further cemented the iconic nature of the 1931 film. Hammer’s filmmakers did everything they could to make their Dracula as different as possible. This can be seen in practically every aspect of the film from script, to set design, to camera movement, performances, and music. This is largely due to the reunion of the production team from The Curse of Frankenstein and a refining of the “Hammer House Style” created and sustained by director Terence Fisher, producer Anthony Hinds, Cinematographer Jack Asher, Production Designer Bernard Robinson, and composer James Bernard.

Starting with the script by Curse of Frankenstein scribe Jimmy Sangster, it quickly becomes apparent that this will be a very different Dracula movie, though not necessarily from the first pages. At first, Sangster treads familiar territory with Jonathan Harker (John Van Eyssen) arriving at Castle Dracula and meeting the tall, black attired Count. But as Harker sits alone on his room and writes in his diary, it is revealed that Harker is no helpless fly being caught in a spider’s web as he is in Stoker’s novel and previous film adaptations, but a vampire hunter sent by his friend Professor Van Helsing, played by the inimitable Peter Cushing, to rid the world of the bloodsucking menace and his “reign of terror.”

The script also centers much more around Van Helsing than prior films. This is partially due to the tremendous star power of Peter Cushing at the time. In fact, Dracula has relatively little screen time by comparison making this film more like the novel at least in the respect of focusing on those affected by Dracula rather than the Count himself. Sangster also made religious imagery much more integral to the story than the 1931 film, which contains only one brief moment of Edward Van Sloan’s Van Helsing using a crucifix to repel Lugosi’s Dracula. Here, and in the Hammer vampire films to follow, practically any objects can be fashioned into a cross, and crucifixes sear into the flesh of various vampiric characters. The use of the cross became so pervasive in Hammer vampire films that later movies like Fright Night (1985), Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992), and Interview with the Vampire (1994) went to great lengths to alter the “rules” involving religious symbols so as to avoid falling into cliché.

The next major aspect that sets Horror of Dracula apart from its predecessors is the fact that it is in brilliant, vibrant color, the first time any Dracula movie had been. This is a continuation from The Curse of Frankenstein, the first full color horror film of its kind. Color is especially important to a vampire movie for one reason in particular: blood. In Browning’s film there is no blood whatsoever and vampiric attacks and stakings all take place off screen. Here we see blood flowing down the faces and from the recently staked bodies of several vampires. One of the most iconic shots in the film is a closeup of Christopher Lee as Dracula, eyes bloodshot, fangs bared, and blood running down from the corners of his mouth. Though not so visceral now, this was groundbreaking, paving the way for the gore-soaked 70s and 80s to follow.

As he had with The Curse of Frankenstein, Jack Asher lit the sets as though shooting in black and white, creating deep shadows that evoke German Expressionism, while simultaneously using color deliberately. He refines every technique employed in the earlier film, such as colored filters (particularly blue and red) on the lights to create the ultimate sense of mood. Asher would continue to refine his methods, which truly reach their apex in the 1960 sequel to Dracula, Brides of Dracula, before he was deemed too slow and expensive for Hammer and let go by the studio. All this despite the stunning visuals he produced across several of the studio’s greatest classics and the fact that no Hammer film he worked on came in over budget or over schedule due to his careful work.

Very much related to the visual aspect of the Hammer House Style is the set design by Bernard Robinson. Previously, Bray Studios where Hammer did the bulk of its shooting was literally a house and it was up to Robinson to make the most of its limited spaces. By the time of the making of Dracula, Hammer had been able to build a modest sound stage on the property and much of Dracula was filmed there. Castle Dracula is particularly impressive and quite different from Stage 12 at Universal Studios in Hollywood, where Lugosi’s castle interiors were built. Lee’s Count resides in an ornate, but very clean home, devoid of the dust, cobwebs, and vermin that famously fill the homes of most previous and succeeding Draculas.

In front of the camera, the actors, particularly Lee and Cushing, provide very different interpretations of their characters from previous versions. This was especially vital for Lee as Dracula. Practically every choice he makes as an actor is the exact opposite of Lugosi. Where Lugosi is warm, inviting, and charming, Lee is icy and stoic. Lugosi’s movements are slow and graceful whereas Lee’s are quick and animalistic, if he moves at all. His stillness in certain scenes and moments offers a sense of absolute confidence and authority. Really the only concessions made toward Lugosi’s monumental portrayal are the black cape and the widow’s peak, though Lee’s hair becomes far more disheveled than Lugosi’s ever would.

Perhaps due to budget constraints, Lee’s Dracula does not turn into a bat, wolf, or mist, but is always in human form, with the ability to shape-shift described by Van Helsing as “fantasy.” He is also far more overtly sexual than previous versions. In Nosferatu, Count Orlok (Max Schreck) is like some kind of vermin, a rat or cockroach, conveying little emotion, and represents plague and death. Lugosi’s Dracula is far more attractive, but even he attacks his victims against their will or while they are asleep. The victims of Lee’s Dracula (with the exception of Harker) are willing participants, practically begging him to sneak into their bedchambers and penetrate his teeth into their necks.

There is an undeniable eroticism in the scenes with both Lucy (Carol Marsh) and Mina (Melissa Stribling). Lucy, a single woman only recently released from her engagement by the death of her fiancé Jonathan Harker, carefully opens the French doors that lead to the patio outside her room, lays down on her bed, and loosens the bedclothes around her neck, awaiting Dracula’s arrival with practically quivering anticipation. Later, Mina, a married woman, acts like a cheating wife concealing her affair, which is not far from the truth. Though the sexual content would become much more explicit in Hammer vampire films of the late 60s and early 70s, it is very clearly present here and would have been shocking for its time. A more modern reading of the film could even suggest that Dracula is a kind of hero, liberating these women from the shackles of Victorian era sexual repression. But Terence Fisher rarely delt in such moral relativism, and depicts Dracula as the clear villain, a servant of evil and perhaps Satan himself, and Van Helsing as the pure force of good and Godliness.

Peter Cushing as Doctor Van Helsing delivers one of his greatest performances and establishes one of three characters, along with Victor Frankenstein and Sherlock Holmes, that would become most associated with him. As Lee had eschewed any kind of accent other than his own for his role, so did Cushing, though at first he wondered if he should play him with a Dutch accent as in the novel. Anthony Hinds told him, “no, I think the thing to do is to play him as you.” Though Van Helsing is ostensibly representative of ultimate good standing against ultimate evil, Cushing plays him with a streak of religious fanaticism that gives the character an element of danger, particularly to modern eyes, that invites the audience to approach him warily. It is an aspect that has aged very well to the benefit of the film, bringing a level of complexity to Van Helsing’s morality that may not have been originally intended.

Rarely have hero and villain been so perfectly matched as they are here. The final showdown between Dracula and Van Helsing is one for the ages beginning with Van Helsing’s discovery of the white coffin in Arthur (Michael Gough) and Mina Holmwood’s cellar. From this point on, the film barrels toward its climax scarcely pausing to take a breath. Both Lee and Cushing demonstrate their remarkable athleticism throughout the sequence, and it has been confirmed that they both did most of their own stunts in these early films. After Van Helsing tears the curtains down from the windows allowing the sunlight to pour in, one of the greatest moments in the history of horror begins. Van Helsing grabs two candlesticks and holds them together, forming a cross, and repelling Dracula into the sun where he disintegrates into dust that is blown away by the wind coming through the open windows. It remains one of the most dramatic and compelling demises of a horror villain ever, one emulated to destroy villains as diverse as Jerry Dandridge, Freddy Krueger (both Fright Night and Nightmare 3 owe a lot to Hammer), and even Art the Clown, though the religious overtones are far more ambiguous in Terrifier 2.

With the one-two punch of The Curse of Frankenstein and Horror of Dracula, Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee were launched into international stardom with the stamp of “horror icon” soon to be attached to both of them. Hammer became the horror studio of the late fifties and sixties and was a clear influence on other horror films of the period. Without Hammer, it is unlikely that we would have gotten Corman’s Poe cycle or the Amicus anthology films. Perhaps even films as far removed from Hammer as The Innocents (1961) and The Haunting (1963) would not have been made. The fact is, Hammer breathed new life into horror by returning it to something more classically grounded.

Even now, we are experiencing something of a gothic horror and specifically Dracula renaissance. Just this year, two Dracula films, Renfield which has already been released and The Last Voyage of the Demeter coming in August, will hit theaters with Chloe Zhao’s futuristic take on the story currently in pre-production. It just goes to show that, through iteration after iteration and resurrection after resurrection, nothing seems to be able to keep Dracula down. But the past 65 years have proven that no matter how many remakes, reboots, and reimaginings come along, Horror of Dracula continually stands as one of the very best versions of this unkillable myth.

Sources:

English Gothic: A Century of Horror Cinema by Jonathan Rigby

Hammer Films: An Exhaustive Filmography by Tom Johnson and Deborah Del Vecchio

“The Men Who Made Hammer: Terence Fisher” Richard Klemesen (Interview), Constantine Nasr (Director)

“The Men Who Made Hammer: Jack Asher” Richard Klemesen (Interview), Constantine Nasr (Director)

Peter Cushing: A Life in Film by David Miller