Monday, December 30, 2013

The Bureaucratic Machinery of Dracula

The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973)
(Platinum Disc Corporation edition)
Directed by Alan Gibson
Screenplay by Don Houghton

Alright, I'm still trying to find a better edition of this film which lapsed into the Public Domain in the U.S.  This version starts out with some awkward blacked out credits (thanks copyright Stalins!). 

This film takes the Satanic ritual parts of Dracula A.D. 1972 and (obviously) puts them center stage.  In previous Hammer Dracula films the devilish rituals were focused on bringing back Dracula and then the rest of the business was left to Dracula to do his vampire thing.  In this film Dracula is already back (though we're not fully sure of it until Van Helsing confirms it) and Dracula himself is appealing to a lower darker power in order to...take over/destroy the world.  That's right, we've finally gotten to the point where the stakes have been raised beyond the simpler (and frankly more dramatically convincing) human-sized stakes (pun intended) of the older Dracula stories.  We've skipped right past the intermediate stakes and we're already talking about apocalypse.  Make no mistake, it's reckoning that Dracula is looking for.  This Dracula has an undeath wish and is intent on destroying all of humanity with a biochemical plague.  And to add insult to injury he again decides to take Van Helsing's granddaughter Jessica with him as his vampire longtime companion.  

As Van Helsing points out, Count Dracula's apocalyptic plan involves killing off his own food source and thus slowly starving for eternity.   But Dracula doesn't seem to care about the logical conundrum of his plan.  He just wants to take a giant rancid vampire dump on the world.  This is more than his erstwhile cult leaders can actually bear. 

See, after dealing with hipster youth in the 1972 incarnation Dracula gets wise and uses cult bikers as mere bodyguards and instead enlists ambitious pillars of the establishment who look to create a crisis that will allow them to unleash a neo-fascist regime that will enrich them leave them with complete power.   (We've been afraid of this kind of conspiracy for a while, you see.)  But exactly what did these guys think they were doing?  At least Julian Keeley the Nobel prize winning scientist who helps create Dracula's super-plague recognizes what he's doing beyond mere venal terms.  He knows that he is in league with evil, and whether it is because he is entranced or just plain bonkers he expresses quite eloquently the fact that he has decided that evil is just stronger in the end.  Van Helsing tries to get him to fight against it but he is instead knocked out by a gunshot (that only grazes his head, thanks to fate/divine will of Providence/power of writer).  Keeley is found hanged. 

Here's the question:  was Keeley murdered by the Dracula Satan Cult, and if so did Dracula give the order?  Because it's easy to see that Keeley's deteriorating mental state, combined with Van Helsing's contact, turn Keeley into a liability and possibly a set of loose lips that needs to be silenced.  But on the other hand Dracula ends up deciding to use Van Helsing as his "fourth horseman" to spread the plague which means keeping his deadliest nemesis close by at the crucial eleventh hour before his plan can come to fruition.  (Don't even get me started about the ham-handed "ticking clock" of the "Sabbath of the Undead.")  Of course, I understand Dracula's desire to stick it to Van Helsing by keeping him alive to watch Dracula turning Jessica into his absolutely fabulous eternal trophy wife.  But didn't you try this plan in 1972, Mr. Dracula?  That was only a year ago.  Why do you think the same plan will work better?  Don't you at least have a little tingle of spidey-sense that will make you slightly wary of trying the same thing that got you pinned on a hedge of spikes last year? 

Meanwhile, what's really interesting is that while Dracula has been literally brought back in corporeal form he has also become quite incorporated as well.  Are his collaborators really aware that the reclusive D.D. Denham, whose corporate headquarters building is built on the former site of St. Bartholph's Church (which was in ruins in the previous Hammer Dracula film) is actually Count Dracula?  Or do they just think he's a curious billionaire who likes to dabble in satanism and who promises a quick path to eternal life (which he's proved to them through the amateur theatrics of stabbing a pretty blonde girl and bringing her back as a vampire)? 

As for the reclusive billionaire who turns out to be a vampire bent on destroying a humanity that he despises by manipulating power hungry, greedy and lecherous pillars of society--well, isn't that really what all corporations are really up to?  D.D. Denham has the good grace of at least being an actual vampire with a soft spot for monologuing with his nemesis. 

And for all the money that he has why does Dracula have one of the worst looking top floor offices I've ever seen?  I hope Dracula drained the blood of the architect that came up with that room.  And what kind of recluse has an office where the elevator from the lobby can open up directly in front of your desk?  Are you trying to be assassinated?

Speaking of assassinations, I have to hand it to Van Helsing for walking into the Devil's den with the world's daintiest Derringer.  At least we see him melting down the silver cross and making his own bullet.  But then maybe it's refreshing to see someone who doesn't need one of those Underworld vampire assault rifles. 

Another motif from this film is that if the powers that be are infiltrated or controlled by people up to no good then the only way to confront them is to engage in a rogue operation.  You can see the problem with this logic.  It's good and well if the problem is that the minister in charge of the Intelligence Services is working with a vampire and you need to go rogue to infiltrate the vampire house and kill some vampires.  But take out that supernatural element and the whole conflict becomes shady. 

Let's talk gender issues for a second here.  There are plenty of women in this film, but they are either victims or monsters.  And only one of the victims manages to escape being turned into a monster and that is Jessica.  The case of Jane from the secret intelligence agency office is instructive.  She is sent home to get some rest after some hard work and is kidnapped by the world's worst dressed bikers. 
The intelligence agency doesn't even realize she's missing when they go take a look at the country house they have had under surveillance.  She is held by the cult and fed upon and turned by Dracula.  (Surely somebody in the cult is quite aware of the vampirism.)  When they do finally stumble upon her she is chained to a wall.  The paternal Torrence tries to rescue her, unaware that Jane is now a vampire.  When she tries to attack Murray manages to drive a stake into her chest...her now conveniently bare chest.   Now, there's a really good reason why the 1930s Dracula films cut away from the image of driving stakes into people's chests.  And while most of that reasoning was based on violence, the other half of that is the combination of violence and nudity that in this film quite frankly sexualizes the violence.  I might think this is an overreaction to some merely titillating (wipe that smirk off your face, Smedley) exploitation.  But then there's the later scene with Murray and Chin Yang. 

There's no other way to describe the positioning of bodies in the struggle between the police inspector and the vampire mistress than the position of sexual copulation but with murderous intent on both sides.  It's not just the fact that Murray is on top of Chin Yang and she is lying underneath him--they are fully clothed, more or less--but it's the camera angle and the way the situation lingers and continues for much longer than mere melee would demand.  It frankly looks more like a rape and in a situation where the man in the "rapist" position is nominally the good guy and the woman in the "victim" position is an evil vampire it's an awkward situation that seems to legitimize any kind of "staking" that Murray is about to deliver.  And if it was a simple matter of pinning her down and staking her as soon as possible, the fact that she's a vampire would seem to suffice.  But I will say it again, the series of images that can be mistaken for sex lingers for an impossibly long time, and the part where she has a fishnet thrown over her...I'll leave that for some other discussion some other time.  Let's just say that this staking was as much too obvious in its metaphor as the one with Jane. 

As for the other former victims who are now monsters (all of them women)?  Remember the thing from Dracula A.D. 1972 where the vampires can be killed off by running water?  Well, what better way to destroy a basement full of vampire women (who are chained to their coffins, mind you) than to open up the spigot of the helpfully placed sprinkler system at the top of the stairs?  While at first this might seem to be a case of the writers giving a character a too simple solution for a really big problem, it actually makes sense when you think about the corporate structure of the Denham/Dracula conglomerate and what they're up to.  It's not about proliferating vampirism and unleashing hordes of ravenous monsters on the country.  Especially if that means unleashing independent female monsters.  Dracula here isn't in the business of liberating anybody's sexuality.  He's harnessed it, shackled it and turned it into a commodity and lest anybody think there's anything the least bit liberating about it he's put a kill switch in easy reach where he can order the whole operation shut down with a simple sprinkle of water.  In that regard, this film has hidden within it a pretty cynical analogue for the very kind of exploitation that I found problematic with the deaths of Jane and Chin Yang.  This film is part of the very cynical media co-opting of "liberated" female sexuality.  (Look, I'm free to rip open my blouse and get staked in the chest if I choose to do that.)  But the vampire girls chained to their coffins have no real agency.  They are part of the machine that uses their bodies and keeps their bodies available and which will dispense with them once they are no longer of use.  They aren't even free to do the thing that they have been "turned" into desiring on their own volition.  They will be "fed" when the company has decided to feed them.  Of course, this kind of critique bears all the problems that go with Being the Thing You're Criticizing. 

At any rate, that's something I noted about this film that was a bit troubling.

Of course Van Helsing pulls through in the end and with Murray's help saves Jessica (and the rest of the world.)  Once again it is the articles of faith that are required to put down the vampire, though here there is no requirement of faith itself, just the articles of faith as if there's a mutual recognition that neither the vampire nor the vampire killer believe in the rituals they are engaging in (does Dracula really think the Sabbath of the Undead holds some sort of special meaning?) but that the objects have acquired the requisite patina of precedent that makes them the mutually agreed upon Things That Will Kill a Vampire Because...even if the vampire killer and the vampire don't really care about what you believe in.  Still, a hawthorne bush...that's a nice trick.  Not sure why Dracula wouldn't have a serious scent-based radar for the presence of hawthorne (granted, it's not garlic or wolfsbane). 

So this is the last of Hammer Dracula films with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing.  Not exactly a bang, but I'm not sure I would have liked to see what Dracula 1974 would have looked like.  I suspect that it might have looked like Five Easy Pieces or maybe it would have looked like Moonraker, who knows?

If Dracula A.D. 1972 played out like a seventies cop show, then this film played out like a seventies spy thriller.  Something like Day of the Jackal or The Eiger Sanction but with vampires and pseudo-satanic rituals.  And maybe part of the problem is that the film could have used a more self-conscious mixing of genre that would make the whole thing slightly more coherent. 

Cast
D.D. Denham/Count Dracula -- Christopher Lee
Lorrimer Van Helsing -- Peter Cushing
Jessica Van Helsing --  Joanna Lumley
Inspector Murray -- Michael Coles
Torrence -- William Franklyn
Julian Keeley -- Freddie Jones 
Colonel Mathews -- Richard Vernon
Chin Yang -- Barbara Yu Ling
Lord Carradine -- Patrick Barr
John Porter -- Richard Mathews
General Sir Arthur Freeborne -- Lockwood West
Jane -- Valerie Van Ost
Hanson -- Maurice O'Connell
Doctor -- Peter Adair
Vampire Girls -- Maggie Fitzgerald, Pauline Peart, Finnuala O'Shannon, Mia Martin
Guard #1-- Marc Zuber
Guard #2 -- Paul Weston
Guard #3 -- Ian Dewar
Guard #4 -- Graham Rees
Commissionaire -- John Harvey

Music by John Cacavas
Cinematography by Brian Probyn




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