Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #16231 in DVD
• Released on: 2005-10-31
• Rating: Suitable for 18 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Formats: PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 92 minutes

Synopsis
In modern-day London a group of young people hold a black mass and unwittingly summon back the spirit of Dracula, who embarks on a reign of terror.

Customer Reviews

(Un)dead groovy, man!
Seeing this film again on DVD brings back fond memories as this was one of the first horror films I ever saw.

Nowadays this film seems very tame indeed (it was made before The Exorcist, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Freddy & Jason etc) but it is still a lot of fun. For starters it has a terrific cast. Christopher Lee is of course Count Dracula and Peter Cushing plays Lorimar Van Helsing, a modern day descendant of Lawrence Van Helsing. The Hammer Glamour is mainly provided by Stephanie Beacham (as Lorimar Van Helsing's grand daughter, Jessica) and the amazing Caroline Munro.

The movie begins with an all-action prologue with Lawrence Van Helsing (also played by Cushing) battling Dracula onboard a speeding horse-drawn coach in Hyde Park. The coach eventually crashes and Dracula is impaled on the spokes of a broken wheel (ouch!!!). Van Helsing also dies but not until he has witnessed the evil Count (no Carry On-Style gag intended there) reduced to a pile of dust. However, someone else has also witnessed the Count's demise...

The opening credits roll and we are then transported 100 years forward to the present day (well 1972, anyway). Dracula is resurrected by one of his disciples Johnny Alucard (hmmm... I wonder what you get if you spell that surname backwards?) in a black mass ceremony involving lots of blood and Dracula then sets out to wreak revenge on the Van Helsings by planning to make Jessica his vampire bride.

There are some wonderful set pieces in this film - the opening sequence is very well done and the showdown between Lorimar Van Helsing and Johnny Alucard is memorable. I have to say though that Dracula is dispatched quite easily at the film's climax (something which is not uncommon in the Hammer Dracula films) but before this happens Cushing and Lee at least get to indulge in a battle of wits with Cushing using a variety of "weapons" against the Count.

I know some Hammer fans are not over-enthusiastic about this film but I have always found it very enjoyable and it is good to see this film released on DVD.

Like, Taste the Blood of Dracula, kids!
For reasons known only to the author, Bram Stoker's Dracula never included the line "Sergeant, I'll bet you a pound to a pinch of s**t that there's a little piece of hash at that party, and if there is, I've got them.", but the early 70s saw that particular oversight put right. Dracula A.D. 1972 saw Hammer trying to pump new life into the old Count with a new creative team whose big idea was basically to rehash the plot of Taste the Blood of Dracula in the 1970s with Christopher Neame in the Ralph Bates role as Johnny Alucard, here conning a thrill-seeking group of with it kids (Michael Kitchen and Caroline Munro among them) into making a date with the Devil with a Black Mass at the deconsecrated church that not only holds Lawrence Van Helsing's body (Lawrence? Whatever happened to Abraham?) and Dracula's ashes. "Okay, okay. But if we do get to summon up the big daddy with the horns and the tail, he gets to bring his own liquor, his own bird and his own pot."

As with the Godzilla films, the main attraction is kept off the screen for most of the running time - top-billed Christopher Lee's role is probably smaller in this than any other in the series, four brief scenes probably totalling no more than ten minutes. Worse still, looking more like Peter Sellers than Transylvanian aristocracy, he brings nothing except continuity to the part: he does what is asked of him with professionalism, but that's about it. Instead the bulk of the film is carried by Neame's Malcolm McDowell wannabe, second-billed Peter Cushing as Van Helsing's grandson Lorimar, Stephanie Beacham and Michael Coles' open-minded cop ("There is a Satan." "Of course. Otherwise we wouldn't need a police force, would we?"). Yet despite the clumsily handled prologue and finale it's fairly entertaining even if it is completely derivative, perhaps even more entertaining now than when it was released because its hip and happening trappings are far funnier than the intentional comic relief - not least Johnny Alucard urging "Dig the music, kids!" during the black mass - and it's a lot better than Dracula 2000.

The DVD also includes the wonderfully over the top trailer - "Are you ready? He's ready. He's waiting to freak you out - right out of this world!" - but not the short making of documentary from when the picture was still called Dracula Today (other rejected titles included Dracula Chases the Mini Girls and Dracula Chelsea '72!).

Mostly starring Stephanie Beacham's knockers...
I flat out apologise in advance for this review, but the BEST thing about Dracula A.D. 1972 is, frankly, the awe inspiring sight of the lovley Miss Beachams heaving cleavage in a variety of skimpy/see through tops. Yes, it's sexist, I'm sorry (sort of) but Hammer made a habit of 'this sort of thing' and obviously my low brow expectations were well and truly met. Of course, the equally lovely Caroline Munroe is in the mix as well, but she's dispatched rather early but not before having copious amounts of blood spilt over her - you guessed it - heaving cleavage.

Despite being rather 'cleavage heavy' (no pun intended) A.D. 1972 perversely works rather well even though it is stupid to the point of absurdity. 'Groovy' kids, led by Johnny Alucard, raise Dracula in a bizarre ritual of music you can dig and 70's (60's surely?) trippy, drug induced hypnosis in which everbody gets a little hot under the collar and - shock! - two people kiss! Ah well, the good Count is back from the dead and it is up to Lorimar Van Helsing to assist the Bluebottles in solving a spree of mutilations across..er..Chelsea.

The fact that this movie is exactly the same as every other Dracula film produced by Hammer means familiarity breeds contempt. Christopher Lee's Dracula is a lazy Count, doing little and striking enigmatic poses in his gothic church as Alucard and his cronies attempt to capture Van Helsing's granddaughter (luckily, the ever heaving Miss Beacham again!) so Dracula can kill her. Not much of a plot, sure, but the actual saving grace of the film is the casting of Peter Cushing and - incredibly - the 70's backdrop.

The film is well shot, pacy, quite well acted and has a few moments of bright red blood spurting fun before the inevitable cross disolve/back to ashes climax (Dracula fans will know what I mean). So NOT the utter disaster I was expecting, but just more of the same.