Dracula: Prince of Darkness

One of the Hammer studio's vampire films. Two English couples are travelling in the Carpathians. They are warned on the road not to go near a certain castle, and their driver leaves them at a fork and goes. A driverless carriage picks them up and takes them straight to the castle. Nobody is there, but the table is laid, the fire is lit and the rooms are ready. Klove, the only servant, behaves as though he had been expecting them. A ritual is performed that night and the Count, destroyed ten years before, is brought back. This is what the film is known for: the Count does not say a single word in it. The reason was argued over; the actor said he refused the dialogue because it was poor, while the writer maintained the part had been written silent from the start. Christopher Lee leaves the whole performance to look and movement. Barbara Shelley is in the cast, with Andrew Keir as a priest; his character differs from the usual vampire hunter of the genre, hard and sardonic. Terence Fisher directed. It is a direct continuation of the previous Dracula film and keeps the same studio style: colour, red blood and gothic sets. A solid choice for anyone who likes classic horror and the Hammer tradition. For a viewer expecting fast horror, the whole first half is given to setting things up.