So obvious that it’s actually called The Anniversary!
The Anniversary (1967– see!), in which somebody needs to put a muzzle on Bette Davis, stat…
The Atomic Submarine (1959), in which the flying saucer swims for a change…
Beyond the Door (1974), in which the mother is possessed instead of the daughter, and it changes everything— even though very little else changes…
The Catman of Paris (1946), in which you wouldn’t believe me anyway…
Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968), which will cause less charitable viewers to wish he would go back…
Taste the Blood of Dracula (1969), which temporarily reclaims the franchise’s honor…
and…
Scars of Dracula (1970), which tosses much of it away again.
#1 by lyzard on November 10, 2014 - 12:21 am
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I’m a big believer in the Bleeding Obvious.
#2 by RogerBW on November 10, 2014 - 6:53 am
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(The Atomic Submarine) Yeah, a direct line route from say Liverpool to New York doesn’t even get as far north as Iceland, and the ice pack doesn’t reach that far south. See this map of a modern set of transatlantic air routes – none of which goes over the ice cap. On the other hand, USS Nautilus had famously made the first trip under the North Pole in 1958, and one suspects that that may have been the inspiration here.
Meanwhile you need a reason not to have air travel for the same trip; by 1959 the Boeing 707 had been in service for two years, and Pan Am was flying commercially between New York and Paris (albeit with a refuelling stop at Gander); all right, ocean liners were still being built, but it’s something that someone writing science fiction really needs to be thinking about.
(Beyond the Door) If the film gave more time to Dimitri, it could show him scrabbling for any sort of let-out to his deal with the devil – but then he’d be a more sympathetic character, and I get the impression he’s meant to be an unambiguous villain whose main job is to push along the plot of the more important people.
#3 by blake on November 10, 2014 - 6:49 pm
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(The Atomic Submarine) – When I acquired the film back around 2004, copies of the Criterion DVD would regularly show up on Amazon with starting bids of 10 bucks. Within a couple of days, people would be bidding 40 to 50 for it, at which point I would give up. I finally broke down and got a DVDr from a friend.
(Scars of Dracula) – I had watched my first two Hammer Dracula films, D:POD and DHRFTG, back when I was a teenager and a little less discerning as a movie viewer. I then watched HORROR OF DRACULA and this one after my mission. I think I liked this one more, since it gave Dracula a lot more to do and the death scene was far from typical vampire stuff.
#4 by DamonD on November 14, 2014 - 5:06 am
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“Who has done this thing?!” is great, but I love even more Lee’s melodramatic delivery and arm-flinging on “Throw it awayyy!”
Taste is genuinely a good one, yeah. It manages to pull the surprising trick of you actually wanting Dracula to succeed at times, despite not budging an inch from him being an evil bastard. I have soft spot for AD 1972, which basically cribs a lot from this mixed in with it’s own loopy style.
Scars, though, I just can’t stand. Just rubs me the wrong way, I think it’s my least favourite Lee Dracula aside from the dull Satantic Rites.