DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE (1968)

One day, a boy sweeping the church in a small Transylvanian village discovers blood on the belltower rope, and the priest finds a dead woman hanging upside down in the bell, two gruesome bite marks on her neck. Though Dracula (Christopher Lee) had been vanquished, frozen in the ice of a mountain river, the townsfolk take this as a sign that the church, occasionally touched by the shadow of Dracula's castle, is not a safe place and parishioners quit going to mass. A visiting monsignor (Rupert Davies) sends the local priest up to the castle to perform an exorcism which involves wedging a huge golden crucifix in the door of the castle, but being scared and a bit drunk, in the process he falls and cuts himself; his blood trickles down through the ice and re-animates the Count who breaks free and turns the priest into his Renfield-type slave. Meanwhile, the monsignor's niece Maria (Veronica Carlson) is sweet on the poor but handsome pastry cook Paul (Barry Andrews, with Roger Daltry-ish looks), who is an outspoken atheist which causes tensions with the monsignor, and to get revenge against the meddling cleric, Dracula puts the bite on a busty barmaid who is supposed to help him get to Maria. This fourth entry in the Hammer Dracula series was intended as a direct sequel to DRACULA PRINCE OF DARKNESS (which ends with Dracula sinking into the ice), though the movies never really feel very connected, with Lee the only actor to appear in more than one of the movies. The Hammer look (fairly artificial but atmospheric) works well here, especially the scenes in front of the castle with the huge cross. The acting is fairly colorless, though Andrews has a nice scene arguing about his atheism with the monsignor, and Lee is his usual stoic, steely-eyed vampire self, given little dialogue and even less motivation. The odd use of color filters to indicate Dracula's presence is distracting, but overall this is a slightly better-than-average film in the series. [DVD]