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Dracula Has Risen from the Grave | 
 enlarge | Director: Freddie Francis
Actors: Christopher Lee, Rupert Davies, Veronica Carlson, Barbara Ewing, Barry Andrews
Studio: Warner Home Video
Category: DVD
List Price: $19.98
Buy New: $7.83
You Save: $12.15 (61%)
New (43) Used (13) Collectible (1) from $6.75
Avg. Customer Rating:  56 reviews
Sales Rank: 22517
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dubbed, Dvd-video, Subtitled, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), English (Original Language), French (Dubbed)
Rating: G (General Audience)
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 92
Aspect Ratio: 1.77:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: D31839D
ISBN: 0790789663
UPC: 085393183929
EAN: 9780790789668
ASIN: B0001FVE68
Theatrical Release Date: February 6, 1969
Release Date: April 27, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: BRAND NEW Factory Sealed - Ready to be shipped within 24 hrs from California - Average 5 workdays delivery time - Excellent customer service - Buy with confidence!
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Amazon.com
Dracula Has Risen from the Grave is the third Christopher Lee Dracula film from Hammer Studios. While trying to rid the former Dracula's Castle of evil after the mysterious death of a local girl, the Monsignor inadvertently raises the dark prince from his deathly slumber. Once awaken from the grave, the parched prince only has one thing on his mind, the yummy taste of blood which he fiendishly extracts from the local maidens. Though a little weak in plot, Dracula Has Risen from the Grave still comes off as a strong vampire film, delivering the goods on the gothic visuals, eerie sets, and Lee's performance. --Rob Bracco
Description
When the niece of a prominent clergyman becomes Dracula's victim, the monsignor vows to put a stop to Dracula's deadly ways.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 51 more reviews...
 Ugh! September 2, 2008
First, I must state that I dislike violent films, and tend to avoid viewing them. That way, the vast majority of persons reading this review will know right away that they probably have nothing useful to learn from my review (and will probably mark it as "not helpful" because after all, how dare someone like me post a review of a horror film?)
On the other hand, though, this film was rated G (way back in 1968, when that meant only "Suggested for GENERAL audiences - all ages admitted" and didn't have any other connotations) and so I thought perhaps this might have something of the flavor of "golden age" Hollywood films that have spooky old houses and mysterious music as a woman explores haunted hallways in candlelight and maybe glimpses a creepy figure and screams. My hope was that it would be in classic style, rather than the sadistic junk that passes for "horror" in today's cinema.
Unfortunately, this film was very much what I should have expected from Christopher Lee.... It is also the bloodiest G-rated film I've ever seen. That's right - bloodiest! Today, when bloody violence means an R rating, it sounds like a joke to say that a G-rated film could possibly be bloody. At most, one would think that a close-up of someone's finger with a papercut would be the most that a G rating would allow. Well, this was 1968, so ignore all that marketing junk that has surrounded the rating system in the following decades. The early ratings had long been criticized for being overly concerned with sex and profanity and not concerned enough with violence. And this film is a great example of that. Parents DID complain at the time, but Jack Valenti just said that: Well, the Dracula genre is traditional in film, and those parents just aren't aware of those traditions. He totally missed the point. Those traditions themselves were controversial from the outset - far from simply being tradition, the mixing of sensuality with violence has always been a controversial part of the vampire genre ever since the original Dracula novel, and this film is well beyond anything that would have been approved under the classic production code. The most appealing part of the film are its comely young women, who make a point by the way of exhibiting cleavage throughout the film. But viewers supposedly want more than appealing faces and figures on screen, when they select a horror film, and so these women get placed in jeopardy and even murdered (!) for our supposed entertainment.
Let me state frankly what this film offers, and if you've learned to think that these things are "entertaining" then you can take that into account. If, on the other hand, you actually think that there is something valuable about human life, and that vicious portrayals of injury, bloodshed and murder are quite opposed to the respect that human life deserves, then you should take this warning into account before watching this G-rated film.
The very opening scene involves the discovery of a woman's corpse, by following its trail of blood up through a bell tower to its source. She's hanging upside down at the top, with a purple wound in her neck where she'd been bitten and blood beneath her, pooled on the floor and dripping through. Her body is later seen in a state of some decomposition being dumped disrespectfully from its coffin.
Numerous scenes involve extreme close-up views of the puncture wounds from Dracula's bite, in women's necks, with swelling and purple bruising.
In this film, various wounds produce blood. The vampire is revived when a head wound has pooled blood that happens to drip through some ice into a wintry tomb in which it lands on the sleeping Dracula's lips. (If Dracula hadn't yet revived, then it turns out that this film has no explanation whatsoever for the first victim that was found!)
A woman is murdered and her body is burned in a fireplace. In this lengthy scene, we are spared only the actual vision of the body being loaded into the flames.
When a stake is driven into Dracula in this film, blood actually flows from the wound in numerous extreme close-up shots. This, today, would be R-rated fare, were it not for the cinematic "traditions" that Jack Valenti originally referred to for the dracula films.... :-(
Dracula is also impaled on a metal cross, with visible blood and extreme close-up shots showing the metal going through his body and protruding from his torso, with blood on it. This is not a brief glimpse, mind you, but an extensive collection of shots as part of an entire scene showing his demise, with all the lurid displays one would expect of today's PG-13 films.
You were warned.
This is a vicious little film of the "modern" blood-and-murder style of horror. :-( It delivers very little else of significance, and is NOT recommended.
The best of Lee's Dracula sequels March 5, 2008
For the US release of Hammer's fourth Dracula film (only the third to actually feature Christopher Lee, the Count sitting out Brides of Dracula), Warner Bros. used a one-sheet of a woman's neck with a sticking plaster on it, following the title Dracula Has Risen From the Grave with the single word 'Obviously.' The film itself, however, is anything but tongue-in-cheek, and played deadly straight with a conviction the series gradually lost over the years. It's probably the best-looking of all the Hammer Dracula sequels, and also the first where Christopher Lee actually speaks. As usual he's almost a background figure for much of the film, with the bulk of the film carried by Barry Andrews' atheist student romancing Veronica Carlson's niece of Rupert Davies' Monsignor, who inadvertently starts the blood flowing again when his attempt to exorcise Dracula's castle only results in the Count being revived from his icy grave by blood from a convenient cut. Finding himself cast out of his home and aided by Ewan Hooper terrified priest (Renfield presumably being otherwise engaged), Dracula determines to take his revenge on Davies and his kin, stopping off en route for a light snack with Barbara Ewing's busty redheaded barmaid.
With a prologue that takes place before Dracula, Prince of Darkness and the main body of the film taking place a year later, it takes some liberties with the vampire mythology: the revived Dracula's first appearance is as a reflection, he has no problem removing crosses from willing girls' necks while a stake alone is no longer enough to kill him: you have to pray as well, which is a bit of a problem when your hero doesn't believe in God. Yet they're not as jarring as they might be, the latter resulting in one particularly memorably gory sequence. The change in director from Terence Fisher, sadly in decline at that time and unavailable due to a car crash, to Freddie Francis gives the film less of a production-line feel than most of the studio's Dracula series and, despite an awkward filter in some scenes and a distinctly jaundiced look for the Count, the film has a much more expansive look and feel almost unique in the series, with a striking and well-employed rooftop set courtesy of undervalued production designer Bernard Robinson and some relatively unfamiliar Pinewood standing sets rather than the overused backlot at Bray. He gets good performances too, with a particularly nice turn from Michael Ripper as an amiable innkeeper (as opposed to his usual miserable and terrified innkeepers).
Unfortunately while the DVD boasts excellent colour and definition, some shots look oddly distorted, as if stretched, and the sound wanders in and out of synch far too often for comfort. On the plus side it does restore the censor cuts of about half a dozen gallons of blood spurting from Dracula's chest after he gets staked and includes the original trailer.
Dracula has risen from the grave November 5, 2007
Dracula has risen from the grave. I found the storyline quite narrow,but it was still solid entertainment. It was the second Dracula hammer film that I had purchased and I enjoyed it very much.
 The first Hammer film I saw November 1, 2006
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
I was like 10/11 and it was on one of the old cable "superstations." I had always loved old monster movies, but this was like Dracula on speed for me as a kid. As I've grown, I have amassed a large Hammer film library and was delighted to see this out on DVD. It's easily one of my favorites. For the newcomer to Hammer films, they all move fairly 'liesurely' (read, 'slow') and are driven by lots of exposition. But, to me, that plus the settings, cinematography and high-class acting really gives the Hammer films a special class that other horror films severely lack. I recommend this one highly.
Christopher Lee could replace his predecessor Bela Lugosi as Count September 26, 2006
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
Christopher Lee could balance and continue his charismatic predecessor Bela Lugosi(1882 - 1956) in the 60's Hammer british Dracula series.
This film is a great example for Lee as Count.
The differences are:
- Lugosi was more a theatrical Dracula from Broadway. Lugosi acted very elegant, exclusive & gentleman as a Dracula star. His charming style becomes a legend.
- Lee is more a mainstream Dracula star. He is not a theatre star like Lugosi did in 1931. He'd prefer a type of cold elegant beast. His style is less charming because he has to accustom himself into various directions in eight Dracula series.
Lugosi played as Dracula three times:
1. Dracula 1931
2. Return of the Vampire 1944
3. Mark of the Vampire 1935
Lee played as Dracula 8 times (see Filmography Imdb)
Frankly Bela Lugosi was a bit more charismatic than Christopher Lee, but Christopher Lee could balance the great charisma of his great predecessor.
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