Freddie Francis took over the directorial reins for the fourth in Hammer’s Dracula series with Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (“obviously…” quipped the jokey American posters over a picture of a blonde victim with sticking plasters on her neck). It was also the first Dracula script credited to “John Elder”, the pseudonym used by producer Anthony Hinds, though he’d done some uncredited work on The Brides of Dracula (1960) and “Elder” had adapted the Dracula III script into The Kiss of the Vampire (1963). It was a measure of how far Hammer had come that they were awarded the Queen’s Award to Industry, commemorated in a ceremony for the press on the steps of Castle Dracula during production.

It all kicks off with a cracking opening sequence set during the events of the previous film, Dracula Prince of Darkness (1966), with the discovery of the body of a buxom village girl stuffed into the church bell, presumably placed there by Dracula’s manservant Klove as a gesture of contempt, a metaphorical two fingers to the impotent local clergy. A year later and Monsignor Ernest Mueller (Rupert Davies) arrives in the village of Keinenberg to find the locals still fearful of the Count and that the never-named, cowardly priest (Ewan Hooper) who found the body has lost his faith. Determined to put an end to all this nonsense, the Monsignor accompanies the priest on a long journey up the mountainside carrying a large gold cross on his back to seal the door to Dracula’s castle. But when the priest slips, blood from a wound on his head seeps into the rocks and Dracula (Christopher Lee) is revived, at the height of a raging storm of course, from his icy tomb, presumably the moat, or a stream leading to it, into which he fell at the climax of Dracula Prince of Darkness. Dracula enslaves the priest and sets up a lair in the basement of the Café Johann from where he plans his revenge against the Monsignor, first enslaving barmaid Zena (Barbara Ewing) then turning his attentions to the Monsignor’s niece Maria (Veronica Carlson). The Monsignor and Maria’s boyfriend Paul (Barry Andrews) try to protect her but Dracula still manages to bite her and lures her to his castle…

Lee’s Dracula has little to say (though at least he gets some lines this time, unlike his wordless appearance in Dracula Prince of Darkness) and Lee delivers them with real venom (“You have failed me – you must be punished!”). He also gets some marvellous bits of business like manically lashing the horses on his hair-raising carriage rides to and from his castle and his Dracula’s demise, plummeting off a parapet to be impaled on a huge cross. There are plenty of macabre moments on hand throughout – the priest unearthing a coffin and tipping out its desiccated occupant under Dracula’s baleful stare, for example, or the revolting suckling motion Lee makes with his lips as Dracula imbibes the priest’s spilled blood.

But perhaps the oddest – certainly the most contentious – of these grim little flourishes is the scene in which Dracula pulls the stake from his blood-gushing heart, a moment that reportedly dismayed Lee and some fans are still unhappy with it. But putting aside questions of whether it fits in with vampire “lore” (it’s all made up anyway) it’s a terrific scene. As ever Lee “sells” Dracula’s agonies with frightening conviction and does so again in his death throes, skewered to a large golden cross, weeping tears of blood as the priest finally rediscovers his faith and strength of character to incant the prayer needed to finish him off.

So Lee is on top form, and although the film still misses the authoritative presence of a Van Helsing to pit his vampire count against, Rupert Davies’ pursed-lipped Monsignor is great fun, indulging in a little comedy business with an embarrassed Paul, the likes of which the grim and humourless Van Helsing would never have even considered. He’s not as memorable as Andrew Keir’s avenging warrior monk Father Sandor from Dracula Prince of Darkness nor as single-mindedly dedicated to the cause as Van Helsing but early scenes of him lugging that huge and heavy cross up the mountainside to Dracula’s Castle – a journey that seems to take an entire day – show at least his determination to put an end to the villager’s fears about the now dead Dracula.

Barbara Ewing is great as the flirtatious barmaid Zena, her desperate pleading with Dracula when he turns his attentions to Maria (“What do you want her for, you’ve got me!”) underlining power that Dracula exerts over his female victims, an idea that would get explored further in the next film, Taste the Blood of Dracula (1969). Veronica Carlson, making her Hammer debut (she’d return to the company for Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969) and was there when their Gothic horrors hit rock bottom with the abysmal The Horror of Frankenstein (1970)) is a fetching heroine, Maria’s seduction by Dracula being stronger stuff than anything we’d seen so far even from the famously envelope-pushing Hammer.

The story itself is paper thin but Francis directs with real energy and verve and Hinds injects an interesting and a daringly sacrilegious note to the proceedings film. Not only is a spineless, faithless priest perverted to Dracula’s cause, but the infamous stake removing scene only happens because Paul’s atheism and the priest’s loss of faith mean they can’t say the prayer that’s suddenly needed to complete the slaying (Van Helsing would never have stood for such nonsense). And at the climax, Francis just pulls back from showing Dracula in a cruciform pose on the cross that’s impaled him. As was so often the way with Hammer films, order is restored in the final moments when Paul’s faith is restored (he crosses himself, somewhat awkwardly as church bells clang distantly on James Bernard’s score). Sadly, the mountaintop and the exterior of the castle where all this takes place rarely convince (it’s all too obvious that they’re just a set), but elsewhere designer Bernard Robinson does his usual sterling work, particularly the wonderful, almost expressionistic rooftop scenes and Dracula’s dank lair in the cellars beneath the Café Johann.

Former cinematographer Francis (who had made his directorial debut in 1962 with the comedy Two and Two Make Six (1962) and joined Hammer for their psychological thriller Paranoiac (1963)) brought with him some filters that he’d used when he photographed Jack Clayton’s marvellous ghost story The Innocents (1961). For Clayton’s black and white film, they added a slightly unearthly glow to the edges of the frame. Here they’re used whenever Dracula, his castle or his basement lair are in shot and add a strange but effective orange tint to the proceedings.

Dracula Has Risen from the Grave was a huge hit for Hammer, one of their most financially successful films to date. In the UK it was double billed with Lamont Johnson’s undistinguished thriller A Covenant with Death (1967) while it did the rounds of the States in the company of Allen H. Miner’s equally bland Chubasco (1968). It’s popularity spurred Hammer’s managing director James Carreras to promise one new Dracula film a year from now on.

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