Hammer entered the 1970s needing to update their formula and style a little and this is what the public were given as a result. The film opens with a bit of narration and your usual gothic sets and settings. While it retains it's old bombastic music the film does take us to some more varied locations than you might otherwise expect. I did like the opening quite a lot, there's this grey hooded spectre that seems to sort of glide through the night and mist, I would perhaps have preferred a movie with more of this as it gives it a strong element of mystery and dread. However it leads to a vampire being beheaded and then the story kicks off.
While it's a nice looking film, the blu ray looks good with nice soft colours, sort of pastel with a light film grain on the negative side you really don't buy for a second that it's actually the 1700s and not the 1970s. The makeup and hairstyles look far too modern, even the dresses are not remotely convincing but there you go. Peter Cushing is pretty much absent throughout the film, it's very female centred instead. Some of the acting gets a bit hammy I'm afraid, and overall there's a bit of a lifeless quality to it. A vampire keeps appearing on a horse though his appearance is never explained or resolved, it feels like something done in a reshoot or something. Madeline Smith though is beautiful in her role as the sweet character ready to be corrupted by the older looking vampire as her lover. She'd only have been about 19 or 20 at the time and looks so innocent. Some of the production design is a tad creaky but having a female villain does gives us something a bit new, vampires continue to be portrayed as evil and corrupting not as tragic or sympathetic creatures. The ending is a bit abrupt with not much time after given to tying up loose ends. By now these Hammer films were starting to get a little played out and were struggling to reinvent themselves in a changing time. Hammer started to go from trend setting to struggling to catchup with and even react what other new directors and filmmakers were doing. The film does have some merit, it still gets the vampire lore right, it's not a bad looking movie and it makes more explicit things only subtext in earlier films. The colours also look some what more faded than the earlier Hammer films with their almost garish reds and greens and ghoulish gore. The special effects are quite good but the story is paper thin at best.
While it's a nice looking film, the blu ray looks good with nice soft colours, sort of pastel with a light film grain on the negative side you really don't buy for a second that it's actually the 1700s and not the 1970s. The makeup and hairstyles look far too modern, even the dresses are not remotely convincing but there you go. Peter Cushing is pretty much absent throughout the film, it's very female centred instead. Some of the acting gets a bit hammy I'm afraid, and overall there's a bit of a lifeless quality to it. A vampire keeps appearing on a horse though his appearance is never explained or resolved, it feels like something done in a reshoot or something. Madeline Smith though is beautiful in her role as the sweet character ready to be corrupted by the older looking vampire as her lover. She'd only have been about 19 or 20 at the time and looks so innocent. Some of the production design is a tad creaky but having a female villain does gives us something a bit new, vampires continue to be portrayed as evil and corrupting not as tragic or sympathetic creatures. The ending is a bit abrupt with not much time after given to tying up loose ends. By now these Hammer films were starting to get a little played out and were struggling to reinvent themselves in a changing time. Hammer started to go from trend setting to struggling to catchup with and even react what other new directors and filmmakers were doing. The film does have some merit, it still gets the vampire lore right, it's not a bad looking movie and it makes more explicit things only subtext in earlier films. The colours also look some what more faded than the earlier Hammer films with their almost garish reds and greens and ghoulish gore. The special effects are quite good but the story is paper thin at best.