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ON THIS DAY ON HORROR - September 5th

"THE BRIDES OF DRACULA" released in 1960

Peter Cushing returns as vampire-hunter Doctor Van Helsing, in Hammer's second film in their epic Dracula series, The Brides of Dracula! Having previously destroyed Dracula (Christopher Lee), Van Helsing now faces an even greater threat in Baron Meinster (David Peel) who lusts after an innocent French school teacher, Marianne Danielle (Yvonne Monlaur), and intends to make her his next vampire bride!

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Having been abandoned by her stagecoach driver at a remote Transylvanian inn, French school teacher Marianne (Monlaur) accepts the invitation of Baroness Meinster (Martita Hunt) to spend the night at her castle. During the night, Marianne notices a handsome young man whom the Baroness claims is her insane son (Peel) and explains he must be kept confined for his own safety. Overcome with curiosity, Marianne sneaks into the Baron's room and is shocked to find him chained by his leg to the wall, and when he tells her that his mother has usurped his rightful lands and pleads for her help, she agrees to steal the key to his chain from the Baroness' bedroom. Horrified, the Baroness attempts to confront her son, but is hypnotized. Later, Marianne discovers the Baroness' servant Greta (Freda Jackson), who has also taken care of the Baron since he was a baby, in hysterics: She shows Marianne the Baroness' corpse, and the puncture marks in her throat, and Marianne flees. She is found, exhausted, by Dr. Van Helsing (Cushing) the following morning. The pair arrive in the village just as a funeral for another of the Baron's victims is laid to rest. Van Helsing contacts Father Stepnik, who had requested Van Helsing's presence with his suspicions about the castle and the Baroness, and the pair later witness the Village girl (Marie Devereux) rise from the grave as a vampire, with the assistance of Greta who holds Van Helsing and Stepnik off as she escapes. Van Helsing pursues her back to the castle and confronts the "turned" Baroness and her evil son.  After a brief scuffle, the Baron flees, abandoning his mother whom Van Helsing stakes through the heart as the sun rises. Swearing revenge, the Baron turns another young woman in the village - and Marianne's friend - Gina (Andree Melly) into a vampire, intending for Marianne to the third and final bride. Conflicted with her feelings for the Baron, Marianne's only hope is for Van Helsing to once again find a way to foil the master vampire's plans and destroy him once and for all!

Marianne Danielle: [gasping in disbelief] Then that poor prisoner, in the tower. He is your son?

Baroness Meinster: He was my son. Now he is only... a beast of the night.

Top:   Dr. Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) prepares to battle another vampire;

Above:   New school teacher, Marianne Danielle (Yvonne Monlaur) makes a fateful visit to the castle.

Following the success of Hammer Film's Dracula (1958), producer Anthony Hinds re-teamed with Dracula's director and writer, Terence Fisher and Jimmy Sangster respectively, to develop a sequel. Sangster's script, with alternative working titles such as Dracula 2 and Disciple Of Dracula, was only feature the Dracula character as a cameo with the remaining film focusing on an acolyte of the vampire. However, with Christopher Lee refusing to reprise his role of Dracula, the script was rewritten by Peter Bryan to remove references to Dracula and add Van Helsing in his place. The script was again rewritten by Edward Percy, this time giving the vampires abilities denied to vampires in the previous film, much like those in the original novel. Sangster, Fisher, and star Peter Cushing would also contribute to the script during the production, with Fisher even making changes on the set just prior to shooting the scenes.

Besides Peter Cushing, Miles Malleson (playing Dr. Tobler) is the only actor to appear in both this film and Dracula. They were joined by regular Hammer Horror actors, Yvonne Monlaur, Andrée Melly, Marie Devereux and Martita Hunt as the Baroness Meinster. Cast as evil vampire Baron Meinster was actor David Peel, in what would be his final film role before retiring from the film industry and later becoming a antiques dealer. Reportedly Peel wore lifts in his shoes to make him the same height as Cushing; Peel, according to his bio at the time, was 5 foot 10 while Cushing stood six feet tall. Rounding out the cast was veteran stage actress Freda Jackson as the insane maid-servant Greta.

[confronting the vampire Baroness]

Baroness Meinster: Who is it that is not afraid?

Dr. Van Helsing: Only God has no fear.

Baroness Meinster: Why have you come here?

Dr. Van Helsing: To find your son.

Baroness Meinster: Then you know who I am?

Dr. Van Helsing: I know who you were.

Top:   Evil vampire, Baron Meinster (David Peel);

Above:   Meinster's loyal servant Greta (Freda Jackson) watches the first vampire bride (Marie Devereux) rise from the grave!

Production began on 16 January 1960, with exterior shooting locations being filmed in nearby Black Park and Oakley Court, and most of the remaining interior shots done at the legendary Bray Studios. For the sequel, the prop department put a lot of effort into making a realistic model bat. However, it got lost and had to be replaced on short notice, explaining the rather unconvincing look of the model that got actually used in the movie. This mishap may have also caused the scrapping of the original ending conceived for The Brides of Dracula; the original climax features a "black magic" ceremony where Dr. Van Helsing summons a swarm of vampire bats to destroy Baron Meinster for violating "the vampire code"...drinking the blood of his own mother and turning her into a vampire. This ending was not used in the film - also because Cushing believed Van Helsing would never stoop to using evil magic to destroy his enemies - but it was used as the climax of the 1962 Hammer horror classic, "Kiss of the Vampire". In its climax, Professor Zimmer (played by Clifford Evans) performs the ceremony and the bats attack Castle Ravna and the vampires that are there. This climax was also included in the paperback novelization of the film by Dean Owen, and included an entire subplot about a character named Latour, a townsman who serves the Meinster estate, and a subplot where Van Helsing and Marianne fall in love and have sex.

Premiering on 6 July 1960 at the Odeon, Marble Arch, The Brides of Dracula was released in United States by Universal-International on September 5th to great success, and also in France where it drew 1,266,561 in admissions. Famous Spanish cult film director Jesus Franco would later credit this film as the one that inspired him to enter the horror film genre in 1961, resulting in his highly acclaimed The Awful Dr. Orloff. Retrospective reviews of the film have remained strong with Steve Biodrowski from ESplatter writing in 2008, "The film features the familiar elements (beautiful color cinematography, lavish sets, solid writing, strong performances), making this a worthy heir to its predecessor", while in 2005 Staci Layne Wilson of Horror.com wrote, "While the plot is over the top and certainly contrived, there are enough spooky sequences to keep horror fans occupied".

INTERVIEW:   "My own personal involvement in a film like Brides was always 100 percent, not because I felt it to be my duty but because I felt very strongly that the pictures were mine. No doubt Terry [Fisher] thought they were his and Jimmy Sangster thought they belonged to him. And Peter C knew they were his." — Producer Anthony Hinds (1999).

Top:   Van Helsing battles a giant vampire bat;

Above:   Meinster is eventually defeated when Van Helsing throws holy water in his face!

Despite his reluctance to reprise the role for The Brides of Dracula, Christopher Lee would as Count Dracula for the later films, Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966), Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968), Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970), Scars of Dracula (1970), Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972) and The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973), each employing increasing ingenuity in finding ways to resurrect the Count while upping the graphic violence and gore. Lee grew increasingly disillusioned with the direction the character was being taken and with the poor quality of later scripts — although he did improve these slightly himself by adding lines of dialogue from the original novel - except for Prince of Darkness in which the Count does not speak, but hissed all the way through the film. Lee later claimed it was because he was appalled by his dialogue in that film and refused to speak it, but Jimmy Sangster rebutted that no dialogue was written for the character. Lee also went on record to state that he was virtually "blackmailed" by Hammer into starring in the subsequent films; unable or unwilling to pay him his going rate, they would resort to reminding him of how many people he would put out of work, if he did not take part, " Emotional blackmail. That's the only reason I did them", Lee claimed in the book Monsters in Movies: 100 Years of Cinematic Nightmares (2011). Hammer went on to make one more Dracula film without him: The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1974), with John Forbes-Robertson playing the Count and David de Keyser dubbing him.

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE:   73%