Scars of Dracula

Scars of Dracula is a 1970 British horror film directed by Roy Ward Baker for Hammer Films. It stars Christopher Lee as Count Dracula, along with Dennis Waterman, Jenny Hanley, Patrick Troughton, and Michael Gwynn. Although disparaged by some critics, the film does restore a few elements of Bram Stoker's original character: the Count is introduced as an "icily charming host;" he has command over nature; and he is seen scaling the walls of his castle. It also gives Lee more to do and say than any other Hammer Dracula film except his first, 1958's Dracula. Plot Count Dracula's remains lie on a stone plinth in a chamber in his castle. The chamber can be accessed only through the window, set high in his castle wall. A large bat flies in and hovers over the plinth, regurgitating blood onto the Count's remains. The remains start to interact and bond with the dripped blood. Within seconds, Dracula is once more resurrected. Local villagers are soon enraged that yet another young woman has been murdered by the Count. With a priest's blessing, they rise up and set fire to Dracula's castle. However, Dracula is safely asleep in his solid stone chamber. When the villagers return home, they find that every woman in the village has been slaughtered in the church by vampire bats. Elsewhere, libertine Paul Carlson is falsely accused of rape and flees the Kleinenberg authorities by jumping into a coach which, though driverless, heads off at great speed. After breaking through the border guard, he is knocked off the coach, and stumbles into an inn, persuading the waitress Julia to let him in. The innkeeper interrupts them though and throws Paul out. Walking in the forest, he finds the driverless coach, which the returning Klove, Dracula's servant, drives back to the castle. Initially Paul is welcomed by the Count and Tania, a woman who later reveals herself to be imprisoned by Dracula as his mistress. Paul has a liaison with Tania, who concludes their lovemaking by trying to bite his neck. Dracula appears and, casually throwing off Paul's efforts to stop him, stabs Tania through the heart with a dagger for betraying him. He then stoops over to drink the blood from the wounds of her dead body. Dracula's servant Klove dismembers her body and dissolves it in a bath of acid. Locked in the room high in the castle, Paul uses tied-together bed curtains to climb down to a lower window, but the line is withdrawn by Klove and he finds himself in the Count's chamber.