Originally Posted by cakefactory
I just have a low opinion of most of the Hammer Draculas after the first two. Lee seems bored in most of them. Dracula Prince of Darkness, generally regarded the third best, I think only really comes alive when Barbara Shelley gets vamped, and I lose all interest after she exits. Taste the Blood of Dracula has some interesting aspects, and it's fun seeing Veruca Salt's dad, but overall it is just uneven. And all the others are worse!
Scars of Dracula is total amateur hour and it blows my mind that Roy Ward Baker was capable of producing something as good as Quatermass and the Pit alongside something as terrible as this. To confuse things even further, he followed it up with Dr Jekyll & Sister Hyde, which is quite good. Virtually every aspect of this movie screams "zero budget rush job," from the abysmal backdrop paintings that look like something from a high school play to the shoddy camerawork (try and figure out the artistic intent beyond the haphazard camera moves as Jenny Hanley cuts her cake). It's extremely bad and feels like it's two hours long. It's got some reliable Hammer veterans in the cast, but they're given some of the worst dialogue in Hammer history and the idiotic plot just drags everything down. On the plus side, Jenny Hanley is adorable and the score is pretty good.
But yeah, basically it is one of the ugliest, shoddiest productions they made and thus seems like a real waste of a 4K compared to anything made in the early-mid 60s when they had much bigger budgets. I hope it sells well just for the possibility of future Hammers, but I can't imagine buying it myself.
I am not sure what else is controlled by Studiocanal in this country. Hopefully not just the stuff in that last octet of releases (To the Devil a Daughter, Blood from the Mummy's Tomb, Dr Jekyll Sister Hyde, Horror of Frankenstein, Fear in the Night, Straight On Till Morning, Scars of Dracula, and Demons of the Mind), but I know a lot of the others released by Studiocanal in the UK are held by Universal here. I'm guessing maybe The Witches, The Reptile, Plague of the Zombies, Quatermass and the Pit, X the Unknown, and Quatermass 2? Maybe Frankenstein Created Woman, The Devil Rides Out, Rasputin, Dracula Prince of Darkness and The Mummy's Shroud too?
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