Free Vampires by Charles Butler Page A

Hinds). Director; Roy Ward Baker.
    Synopsis
    A bat flies through the window of Castle Dracula and dribbles blood on the Count’s remains. The Count revives. Later the villagers headed by the local Priest and the Innkeeper trick their way past the servant, Klove, and set fire to the castle. On their return to the village, they discover that Dracula has sent a swarm of bats to kill their kinfolk. Sometime passes and we see Paul Carlson escape from the Burgomaster after seducing His Excellency’s daughter. Paul is on his way to his fiancée, Sarah’s, birthday party. In his pocket, he carries a special framed photograph of Sarah. Arriving at the party and being greeted by Sarah and his brother, Simon, Paul has to leave early as the police come searching him out. He escapes into the forest and comes across the Inn. The innkeeper refuses to let him stay and he ventures out into the forest again. A coach stands in a glade and Simon sneaks inside and settles down to sleep. The coach belongs to Klove and Simon is involuntary taken to Castle Dracula. He is welcomed by a mysterious girl named Tania and the Count and Klove sets him up in a room in the castle. Klove spots the photograph of Sarah and falls in love with the girl. Paul meanwhile is seduced by the beautiful Tania. When she awakens next to him, she reveals fangs and proceeds to bite him in the throat. Before this can happen, Dracula appears and stabs his bride to death and throttles Paul into unconsciousness. Klove decapitates Tania’s body at his master’s bidding. Paul wakes in a stone room that holds a coffin that in turn holds the body of Dracula. Meanwhile, Simon and Sarah have become uneasy as to the whereabouts of Paul and venture into the forest. At the Inn, they find everyone bar a serving girl, very unfriendly. The girl informs them that he went onto the castle and both he and Sarah set out on their way. When Klove spots Sarah, he recognizes her as the girl in the photograph and refuses to remove the cross at her breast for his master. Dracula burns his back with a white hot sabre. Simon discovers Paul’s body mutilated and takes Sarah back to the village to be guarded by the Priest. The Priest is attacked by the bat however and is torn to pieces as Sarah bolts back to the castle. Dracula corners the young pair on the battlements of the castle and Simon realizes that resistance is useless as the iron spike he throws like a javelin impales Dracula, but the Count simply removes it. Holding it high, it is struck with lightning and the Count flares up in flames and falls from the castle turrets. Sarah, now in love with Simon embraces him at the fadeout.
    Review
    Christopher Lee is given more screen time than in any other Dracula film in the series. Tania is the stunning bride played by Anoushka Hempel and Klove returns from Dracula, Prince of Darkness as a kind of satanic handyman and played with a mistrustful edge by Patrick Troughton, while Priest Michael Gwynne sports a wig that steals the film on its own. John Elder’s script takes the Count back to his origins as an icy host holding sway over a terrified populace and the inconsistences in the franchise are glossed over by some brutal death sequences. With no attempt made at continuity from Taste the Blood of Dracula, we see the ruined form of the Count laid on an altar in the castle. A ridiculous looking bat flies in through the window and dribbles blood from its mouth onto the remains. Lee is reconstituted and in no time at all, the local villagers, led by Hammer stalwart Michael Ripper, trick their way past Klove and set the castle on fire. However, the canny Count has an ace up his sleeve. He can telepathically control the animals and, as the townsfolk return to their church, they find their loved ones torn to pieces by a horde of ravening and very unconvincing bats. The only real link in the whole movie is provided by a portrait of Jenny Hanley. Viewed by several different characters, it sustains a break