Dracula: Prince of Darkness
Short description
Two English couples on holiday in the Carpathian Mountains ignore a warning from a local abbot and go on to explore the ruined castle of Count Dracula. Stranded there overnight, they are received by the count's servant, who murders one of the men and uses his blood to restore his master from the ashes. Revived, Dracula turns his attention to the dead man's wife, intending her to join him as his companion, while the survivors try to escape and find refuge nearby.
This is a Hammer Film Productions horror picture directed by Terence Fisher, the eleventh of the sixteen films he directed in chronological order, following The Gorgon and preceding Island of Terror. Jimmy Sangster wrote the screenplay, Anthony Nelson Keys produced, and Christopher Lee plays Count Dracula, with Barbara Shelley, Andrew Keir, Francis Matthews, Suzan Farmer and Thorley Walters in the main cast. The film runs ninety minutes and was released in January 1966.
On TMDB it holds a rating of 6.7 out of 10 from 304 votes, a moderate score that suggests a generally favourable but not unanimous response from those who have logged it.
What's left behind the scenes
- In this film, Dracula does not speak a single word, except for screams at the moment of his death. After reading the script, Christopher Lee found his character's dialogue so terrible that he refused to speak it entirely. However, screenwriter Jimmy Sangster stated in his memoirs: 'Vampires cannot talk. So I didn't write him any dialogue. Chris Lee claimed he refused to say the dialogue supposedly written by me... Judge for yourselves why Christopher Lee had no dialogue in the film. Look at my script. I didn't write any such thing.'
- The film was shot using the Techniscope system.
- Barbara Shelley recalled how, during the filming of this movie, she accidentally swallowed one of her artificial fangs. Because of the tight filming schedule and the lack of spare fang sets, she then drank salt water to try and induce vomiting to get it back.
- The movie was filmed simultaneously with 'Rasputin: The Mad Monk,' using the same actors, crew members, and sets.
- The movie was released alongside the film "Zombie Flesh Eaters." At screenings, fans were given plastic vampire fangs and cardboard "zombie eye" glasses.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
