In this movie we see Dracula burn his servant with a hot sword and stab his female vampire slave to death with a knife.
Christopher Lee had said this was the weakest and most unconvincing of the series. Perhaps he said that before "AD 72" and Satanic Rites" came out? He commented that the makeup was wrong. Was it "Vampires do NOT wear pancake!"? He didn't like the way they had him "biting" the victim. Biting more than once is chewing, is it not? He also complained that instead of writing a story around Dracula, they write it then try to fit Dracula into it.
This movie did have its moments. At least they put in a Stoker scene with him climbing the walls, though it looked a bit weird. He was bent over hobbling on the wall like he had something heavy on his back. Imagine him crawling up the way they showed Langela (Dracula 1979) doing it - from that angle. That would have been sweet.
The bat looked fake, the knife looked rubber, the burning castle looked like an obvious miniature with a big candle in it, the lightning hitting Dracula at the end was an obvious stunt man with a really bad (Michael Myers?) mask and the church scene after the bat attack was disturbing. I agree that the supporting actors were a bit over-matched against the Count. There is no expert vampire hunter in this, just two brothers (one being the third vampire hunter named "Paul" in the series) and that weak priest. I'll give this 5 stars out of 10, an average rating.
