DRACULA AND HIS VAMPIRE BRIDES a/k/a THE SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA (1972)

The last of Christopher Lee's Dracula films. That's just as well, given the mediocrity on display here.

Set in present-day London, the convoluted plot begins with an undercover Scotland Yard detective who infiltrates a Satanic cult and barely lives to tell about it. Needing information on the occult, the investigating detectives turn to Professor Van Helsing (Peter Cushing), a descendant of the original vampire-killer. A lead takes him to his colleague Julian Keely, a Nobel Prize-winning scientist who has developed a new, and even more virulent, strain of the bubonic plague (and lost his sanity in the process). During his visit to the scientist's lab, Van Helsing is knocked out. When he comes to, Kelly has hanged himself and the petri dishes containing the virus are gone.

So what does any of this have to do with Dracula? A legitimate question, particularly since Christopher Lee barely turns up in the first 2/3 of the film. It all boils down to the Biblical prophecy of Armageddon. There are also corrupt politicians, military leaders, academics and industrialists, along with assassins on motorcycles, a Chinese woman who keeps female vampires chained up in her basement, and Van Helsing's granddaughter. All that in just four score and seven minutes.

The film takes liberties with the vampire myth. For example, Dracula is now susceptible to silver bullets. And his vampire brides meet their death when a sprinkler system goes off. Seems that pure water, which symbolizes life, is now enough to kill a vampire. No longer must it be holy water. Finally, Van Helsing overpowers Dracula when the vampire gets caught in a bramble bush of the same wood that made Christ's crown of thorns. The inevitable staking occurs, followed by an interminable scene of Dracula disintegrating into dust.

On a technical level, there's nothing terribly wrong with this film. The acting and production are good; the big problem is the script. The plot is just too damned complicated; it would've been better suited to a James Bond film. In fact, as Dracula relates his world-conquest plans to Van Helsing, he sounds less like a centuries-old vampire and more like Agent 007's archenemy, Blofeld.

So this wasn't a high note on which to end Hammer's Dracula series, but it's not the worst film I've ever seen about the Count. If anything, DRACULA AND HIS VAMPIRE BRIDES is a middling anti-climax of a movie.