Post by Eλευθερί on Oct 12, 2020 9:00:37 GMT
Peter Cushing is the definitive Van Helsing. Whether playing that character or Sherlock Holmes, he is on a completely different level than just about any other actor. Almost nobody else can touch him.
This production seems almost a little claustrophobic in that we get to see so little of the outside of Castle Dracula, or of any other exteriors, and just a few rooms in the interiors scenes. I guess that was due to the relatively low budget, and the fact that they were really grinding out films one after the other in those years. (IMDb lists more than 9 productions credited to Peter Cushing, and ~16 movies and tv episodes for Horror of Dracula's director Terence Fisher for 1957 and 1958.)
But they make up for that with the quality of the acting and the costumes. This production also stands out among the Hammer Horror films in the athleticism in several scenes, notably the final scene, in which Van Helsing leaps across the room to pull down the curtains from the windows.
The main sore point in the whole film is that the effects used for Dracula's death looked amateurish, even for the late 1950s. And in another scene, the camera caught the trembling closed eyelid of a woman who was supposed to be dead. No excuse for them not to have edited that out.
8/10
This production seems almost a little claustrophobic in that we get to see so little of the outside of Castle Dracula, or of any other exteriors, and just a few rooms in the interiors scenes. I guess that was due to the relatively low budget, and the fact that they were really grinding out films one after the other in those years. (IMDb lists more than 9 productions credited to Peter Cushing, and ~16 movies and tv episodes for Horror of Dracula's director Terence Fisher for 1957 and 1958.)
But they make up for that with the quality of the acting and the costumes. This production also stands out among the Hammer Horror films in the athleticism in several scenes, notably the final scene, in which Van Helsing leaps across the room to pull down the curtains from the windows.
The main sore point in the whole film is that the effects used for Dracula's death looked amateurish, even for the late 1950s. And in another scene, the camera caught the trembling closed eyelid of a woman who was supposed to be dead. No excuse for them not to have edited that out.
8/10
