Admittedly, Scars of Dracula is not a very good Hammer Dracula film. It's hampered by a repetitive plot structure, for one thing: different groups of people go back and forth from the tavern to the church to the castle until you start to realize that these are the only sets the filmmakers had and they're trying to maximize them. There's also a horrible bat puppet which, in fact, one grows rather fond of, particularly given that -- while it never seems convincing -- it still is used to kill a priest (!) and to steal a crucifix from around Jenny Hanley's neck, leaving her heaving cleavage smeared with blood. However terrible the effect is, they are committed to it, and make the utmost of it, so you start to be impressed by the things they do make it do convincingly, like when it flies almost in a realistic circle, even as you guffaw at the glowing red eyes, gigantic size, or ability to hover in midair by slowly, stiffly flapping. It is maybe the worst bat effect of its kind ever witnessed in a vampire movie, but it is also somehow the best bad bat effect of its kind that I've seen. You end up cheering for it and chuckling at it in equal measure: Go, fake bat!
Then there's Klove. Nevermind Renfield, I would love to see a contemporary remake of this film written entirely around the character of Klove. It is a different Klove than one gets in Dracula: Prince of Darkness, played here by onetime Dr. Who Patrick Troughton (I think fans of Dr. Who would very much enjoy Scars of Dracula). And it doesn't hurt that with his bushy facial hair, he reminds one rather of Derek Smalls.
Klove is by far the most interesting character here. He is immensely conflicted: he's groveling and servile to his master, but betrays him more than once, possibly because he gets masochistic pleasure out of being punished (which he is shown rather graphically receiving). He appears to flagellate himself, as well. He fixates on a small image of Jenny Hanley, the innocent (but cleavagey) heroine of the film, but it's not clear if he's transfixed by her innocent beauty and inspired to seek redemption, or masturbating frenetically while looking at it; perhaps both. He is the same man who provides one of the protagonists a rope to Dracula's secret lair, enabling him to scale the walls of the castle, who then cuts the rope, a few minutes later (doing late enough in the climb that our hero makes it to the window ledge nonetheless. Maybe Klove just wanted to make sure he couldn't climb back up?).
But the other nice thing about the film is that Christopher Lee is given a fair bit to do, compared, to, say, Dracula: Prince of Darkness where his only dialogue takes the form of hissing. Not only does Lee punish Klove, he scales walls, directs bat attacks, and plays welcoming host to visitors to his castle. His grin during the transaction with Klove, as he burns the open flagellation wounds on his back with a heated sword, was another laugh-aloud moment for me, as it's maybe the single most sadistic image of Lee I've seen? This is some kinky shit:
There is also a rather startling knife murder that takes place where my wife Erika noted that you could see the rubber blade bending (but I was too busy being startled by the violence of it and suspending what disbelief I had). And there's a very, very satisfying and surprising "death" for Dracula, one I did not at all see coming. I'll say no more about it but where almost every death for Dracula in other Hammer films involves some careful set up (lure him out to the Hawthorne bushes, stuff like that) here, it isn't even intentional: the film's protagonist throws a metal pipe at him, which pierces him but doesn't harm him, and he removes it, and you figure he will throw it back and the struggle will go on for another five minutes at least, but... no.
And then there's the cleavage. The chests of both Hanley's virtuous protagonist and the innkeeper's sultry daughter (Wendy Hamilton) are displayed consistently and unsubtly, which is interesting, since the films never tip to Russ Meyer breast fetishism; plausible deniability is maintained. Hammer horror films simply do cleavage better than any other studio has ever done or will ever do again. To pander to the desires of 14 year old boys and yet still do so in a kind of sweetly innocent way... it's a good trick.
Incidentally, see also Anouska Hempel and Delia Lindsay (whose scenes I forgot to note, above; I guess there were actually four sets used for the film, not three!).
All the other hallmarks of Hammer are present, from superb set-decoration to Hammer regular Michael Ripper (whom Sir Christopher describes in the commentary as the soul of Hammer, even more than himself or Peter Cushing) and semi-regular Michael Gwynn (the one being eaten by a bat puppet, above).
The real charm of the film, however, lies in its storytelling. Precisely because it strains a bit, compared to Taste the Blood of Dracula, say, to pull everything together, and doesn't entirely work, you can kind of see the craft of the storytelling laid bare, like the strings on a mediocre puppet (you never do see the strings on the bat, note; cheesy as it is, I'm not entirely sure how they did it). You can imagine a clutch of people in pre-production, discussing what should happen next, throwing out ideas in a roundtable, and trying to make whatever choices they opt for entertaining ones. In that, in its overt determination to tell you a story, it actually resembles a vintage Dr. Who episode; it has a similar innocent charm, even if there's no Tardis (and no Peter Cushing) in sight.
It's not a very good Hammer film, but it was very entertaining no less.
By the way, credit where it's due, Erika was the one who came up with the phrase "Fear and Cleavage."
