Vampiress Review: Dracula A.D. 2015

The Gist: A retelling of the Hammer Horror vampire film, Dracula A.D 1972.

Clarification: Dracula A.D. 1972 would be the one Christopher Lee Dracula film that doesn't get mentioned at all in my blog entry on Hammer Horrors Dracula.  The reason being that it was the one Dracula film that didn't have any female vampires in it (a no, no for Hammer Horror vampire films as a whole and not just the Dracula Series).  The premise was that after being killed (again) during his time a distant relative of a follower of Dracula tricks some young people in 1970's London to participate in a seance to bring him back.  The kids freak out, Dracula comes back and one by one begins picking off the participants of the seance.  The problem with the film was that Dracula waits till the films end to decide he wants to turn a female (as he chooses to kill all the females instead) and is killed in the process.  Dracula without vampire brides is like James Bond hanging out at all mens clubs for an entire movie.  No one wants to see that.  Anyway if you want to see the original I've included it below.

Changes between that film and this are very few premise wise.  Instead of London they're in New York and the "hippie kids" are now college students. The film even uses actual audio from the original film among other Hammer films.

Selling Point: Not only does this movie go out of it's way to correct the fatal flaw of the original film but it has several tributes to the female vampires of other Dracula films as well.

Female Vampire Factor: The first major change when it comes to the story is that the one who brings back Dracula is a female college professor named "Ingrid Stensgaard" (Bessie Nellis). For you Hammer experts that is a combination of the names of the first two actresses to play Carmilla Karnstain for Hammer, Ingrid Pitt and Yutte Stensgaard.  If you watched the original film you know that person does get turned which means you officially have female vampire #1.

 In a tribute to another hammer Dracula film Ingrid get's offed in the exact same manor as Barbera Shelly in "Dracula: Prince of Darkness"

 In fact in other tributes to that film the iconic "You Don't Need Charles" scene is used when Jennifer is looking for her boyfriend Andrew and one of her friends who has been turned "Diana" (Madelyn Wiley) is there to greet her instead.

 Diana later on uses the "Let Me Kiss You" line from that same scene from Prince of Darkness

 Joshua Kennedy does an EXCELLENT job with this film.  Despite it being a low budget film it doesn't come off as cheap IE effort was definitely put into it and it is a fitting tribute to the source material.  I honestly can't say enough good things about it.  A must see for fans of Hammer Horror and gets a Vampire Beauty Rating of 5 out of 5.