As the trio go back to their genteel lives, the Count plots his vengeance on them…
The latter Dracula films of the Hammer cycle have a poor reputation. One can feel it in this film, at least in terms of execution, but even at this stage it still feels like the filmmakers are working out new ideas and variations on familiar themes.
A direct sequel to its predecessor - we get Dracula’s impalement by cross - Taste the Blood of Dracula has an odd backstory.
Originally it was not meant not to feature Dracula - instead, Ralph Bates’ libertine Count Courtly was meant to be the villain ala Baron Meinster from Brides of Dracula.
There is a good story here - the plot of Victorian gentry dabbling in black magic, then falling apart, is potent, particularly the trio’s paranoia about each other following Courtly’s mysterious demise feels almost noir-ish.
My big issue might be down to the direction.
Director Peter Sasdy worked in TV, and you can see this in the visual language - long and mid-shots for dialogue, with close-ups for emphasis or reaction (most emotional reactions happen in close up).
There is an emphasis on cutting through coverage, rather than carrying action in frame.
It is serviceable, but lacks the sense of mounting tension that Terence Fisher would allow to build within the same shot.
It also has the effect of making the film feel rather cheap and disposable.
On the other hand, that lack of polish - combined with the scripts’ skewering of Victorian hypocrisy - makes the film feel like a direct inversion of the Hammer template.
What Horror of Dracula and its previous sequels only alluded to is rendered explicit here - at least more in intent, if not in explicit content.
While the film might have worked without Dracula, it would depend on who was cast as Courtly.
In the final film, this brief but pivotal role as essayed by Ralph Bates, a young actor Hammer hoped to turn into their new star (Bates would later go on to portray Dr Jekyll in the gender-swapped Dr Jekyll and Sister Hyde).
Bates is not particularly good. Courtly is a black magic practitioner who joins forces with the three wealthy men of leisure, and is meant to be the ultimate Dionysian.
But Bates comes across as too put together to be a party animal, and lacks the presence to convince as the film’s antagonist. Frankly, the character feels like it could have been played by a young Christopher Lee.
In contrast, Geoffrey Keen - later famous as the Minister of Defence in the James Bond films, is particularly striking as the hypocritical William Hargood.
Ruling over his family with an iron hand, he hypocritically refuses to endorse his daughter Alice’s (Linda Hayden) relationship with Paul (Anthony Higgins), Paxton’s son.
She eventually falls under Dracula’s spell - the one disappointment about this aspect of the film is that the vehicle for this is traditional mind control, although she is feeling her father.
Dracula has the power to free her of her father and the Victorian restrictions that she rebels against. The mind control muddies the metaphor - an abused woman seeks escape in the arms of another abuser.
A more sophisticated film would have Dracula seduce Alice by playing to her insecurities and desires.
All of the horror of the film is based on undermining the family and the father as the all-powerful patriarch - all three of the men end up murdered by their own children.
It is an element of horror that feels particularly tied to the mood of the late Sixties, as the younger generation became disillusioned with the hypocrisy of their elders (one could also read the film in reverse, as reflecting the fears of an elder generation afraid of being overthrown).
There is some interesting subtext to be read into the family dynamics (there is something creepily incestuous about Hargood’s possessive approach toward his daughter), and the film plays with the now-tired formula in surprising ways: Dracula’s lair is an abandoned church; Paxton Senior ends up staked by Dracula’s brides.
The story is a collection of interesting ideas and moments, but it is nullified by a weak ending - Paul restores the church and Dracula is reduced to ashes again.
It feels rather prosaic.
As the last Dracula film in the same story continuity, Taste the Blood is a slightly disappointing finale - but it should not be dismissed.
Its many points of interest elevate it far above the films which would sadly follow.
