Pythonesque, outlandishly stylish in parts - criminally battered out in others - 'AD, 1972' is a hugely enjoyable film. It is an excellent party movie - both in terms of subject matter and as an accompaniment to much alcohol, although this role was perhaps the final nail in the coffin for any fondness Lee had for Dracula. One has only to see his response to George Lucas putting fangs on a Yoda doll on the set of 'Attack of the Clones' to gauge this. Christopher Lee has often said that 'the Wicker Man' was his best film. The British film cognoscenti laud that film because of its chronological signposting of the beginning-of-the-end of the British film industry. He made 'Dracula: AD 1972' at the same time and his mono-syllabic - almost no-syllabic - role is perhaps what he compared Lord Summerisle to.
It's flaws, however, are what makes the film so enjoyable. Here is the old-men-of-Hammers' idea of what youth culture was like in the 1970s. Loads of RSC twits pretending to be cockney - Ben Elton, Damon Albarn and Jamie Oliver must have studied this film intensely. Stephanie Beecham's character - to the squirming of female viewers and the anger of male audience members - dates the ugliest man in Christendom, here. Van Helsing should have killed him first then made up an excuse: "He was an . . . ugh . . . yes, that's right an ugh-monster!" 'The Stoneground' - a kind of 'Mungo Jerry meets the Doors at Kenny Lynch's House' - achieve celluloid immortality - though I can find none of the tracks found here in their (only?) eponymous album. It is true that, had the filmmakers made a cardboard standee of Lee in costume instead of including the actor no-one would have noticed. Lee does not so much "phone-in" his performance as be photographed without his knowledge and have that photograph put on the internet then beamed back in time. Peter Cushing is the bedrock of the movie. The maestro portrays Van Helsing with calm dignity and a conviction unworthy of the manure that is the script. The above could be taken as advice not to see the film - but don't avoid it, you'll have the time of your afterlife.
