Dracula needs fresh blood

Movie
German title	Dracula needs fresh blood
Original title	The Satanic Rites of Dracula
Country of production	United Kingdom
original language	English
Publishing year	1973
length	87 minutes
Age rating	FSK 18 (later 16)
Rod
Director	Alan Gibson
script	Don Doughton
production	Roy Skeggs
music	John Cacavas
camera	Brian Probyn
cut	Chris Barnes
occupation
Christopher Lee : Count Dracula Peter Cushing : Prof. Lorimar Van Helsing Michael Coles : Inspector Murray Joanna Lumley : Jessica Van Helsing Freddie Jones : Prof. Julian Keeley Richard Mathews : John Porter Barbara Yu-Ling : Chin Yang Patrick Barr : Lord Carradine Lockwood West : General Freeborne William Franklyn : Torrence Richard Vernon : Colonel Matthews
chronology
←  Predecessor Dracula hunts mini-girls Successor  → The 7 golden vampires

Dracula Needs Fresh Blood is a 1973 horror film. It was produced as the seventh in a Dracula series by Hammer . As in the previous film, the action is set in London in the 1970s. It is the third and final film in the series in which Christopher Lee as Dracula and Peter Cushing as Van Helsing face each other.

action

In 1974 the most important representatives of England from politics, science, the military and industry meet in a London mansion to celebrate satanic rites .

Scotland Yard's Inspector Murray and the occult specialist Professor Van Helsing want to put an end to the hustle and bustle. Van Helsing identifies the mysterious industrialist DD Denham, who is the leader behind the rites, as the resurrected Count Dracula .

The count has the plan to destroy humanity with a genetically modified plague bacillus. This is to take place exactly at midnight on November 23rd, the Witches' Sabbath . Three leading members of the groups mentioned above and Van Helsing are said to act as horsemen of the apocalypse . He wants to make Van Helsing's granddaughter Jessica his mate.

Inspector Murray and a servant of Dracula get into a scuffle, as a result of which the main computer explodes shortly before midnight and Dracula's property is set on fire together with the bacillus. Dracula pursued initially Van Helsing, but he caught it in a hawthorn bush , where he scratched and bruised, Van Helsing impaled will and destroyed.

Reviews

• Lexicon of international film : Abstruse horror film […].
• Cinema : Often copied, never equaled and yet tired of being undead in 1973: Christopher Lee, who had shaped the image of the vampire for over 15 years, turned to other roles after this horror film .

Trivia

• Dracula Needs Fresh Blood flopped at the box office and was the penultimate Dracula film of the Hammer Era. The last part of the series is The 7 Golden Vampires . Since Christopher Lee was no longer ready to take on the role of the Count, Hammer hired the actor John Forbes-Robertson .
• The film was panned by the critics . The plot is illogical, the special effects are too cheap, and the whole film is poorly staged. Dracula Needs Fresh Blood is believed to be the worst of all hammer films.
• Alternative titles of the film are Rites of Dracula , Count Dracula and his Vampire Bride , Dracula is Alive and Well and Living in London , Dracula is Dead… and Well and Living in London .

Web links

• Satanic Rites of Dracula in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Dracula needs fresh blood on vampire-world.com

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Dracula needs fresh blood. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .