I first saw this in the mid 90s on a vhs. Revisited it recently.
This is the 9th film in Hammer's Dracula series. Christopher Lee aint present in this one n Peter Cushing reprises his role of Van Helsing for the 4th time. This is a complete different n standalone film as ther is nothing to link this one to the previous one or to any one from the series. Even the Count is not creepy or scary. It has a village n a different castle, more like a Chinese bldg but the atmosphere, the chariot n the foggy n sleepy village is absent.
In 20th century, Van Helsing is a lecturer in China whose theory about a village terrorized by seven vampires is dismissed by his students except for one student whose grandfather was killed by the same seven vampires. He asks Van Helsing if he would be willing to travel to the village and destroy the vampires. Van Helsing agrees and embarks with his son, the student n the student's seven kung fu expert brothers. The dangerous journey is funded by a wealthy widow who was saved by the kung fu brothers. Old Van Helsing aint aware that his arch enemy, Count Dracula has migrated to the same village 100 years back n it is he who commands the seven vampires n an army of the undead. It cud have been an awesome genre mashup but the shoddy direction n lousy screenplay ruined it. Earlier they messed up in Dracula AD by tryin to mix it up with hippies n then they regained some value by mixing the sci fic n spy thriller in Satanic rites.. n finally they closed it up with a big blunder with this lousy mashup.
This is the 9th film in Hammer's Dracula series. Christopher Lee aint present in this one n Peter Cushing reprises his role of Van Helsing for the 4th time. This is a complete different n standalone film as ther is nothing to link this one to the previous one or to any one from the series. Even the Count is not creepy or scary. It has a village n a different castle, more like a Chinese bldg but the atmosphere, the chariot n the foggy n sleepy village is absent.
In 20th century, Van Helsing is a lecturer in China whose theory about a village terrorized by seven vampires is dismissed by his students except for one student whose grandfather was killed by the same seven vampires. He asks Van Helsing if he would be willing to travel to the village and destroy the vampires. Van Helsing agrees and embarks with his son, the student n the student's seven kung fu expert brothers. The dangerous journey is funded by a wealthy widow who was saved by the kung fu brothers. Old Van Helsing aint aware that his arch enemy, Count Dracula has migrated to the same village 100 years back n it is he who commands the seven vampires n an army of the undead. It cud have been an awesome genre mashup but the shoddy direction n lousy screenplay ruined it. Earlier they messed up in Dracula AD by tryin to mix it up with hippies n then they regained some value by mixing the sci fic n spy thriller in Satanic rites.. n finally they closed it up with a big blunder with this lousy mashup.