Die Hexe des Grafen Dracula (1968)
6KDie Hexe des Grafen Dracula: Directed by Vernon Sewell. With Boris Karloff, Christopher Lee, Mark Eden, Barbara Steele. When his brother disappears, Robert Manning pays a visit to the remote country house he was last heard from. While his host is outwardly welcoming, and his niece more demonstrably so, Manning detects a feeling of menace in the air with the legend of Lavinia Morley, Black Witch of Greymarsh, hanging over everything.
“Robert Manning (Mark Eden) searches for his vanished brother in a rural English village, where he is entangled in the legend of Lavinia (Barbara Steele), a witch killed 300 years ago. Laviniau0026#39;s heir, J. D. Morley (Christopher Lee), wants revenge on anyone related to her killers, such as Robert. Robert romances Morleyu0026#39;s niece, Eve, and is aided by occult expert Prof. Marsh (Boris Karloff), but it is up to him to repel Morleyu0026#39;s evil designs.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eBoris Karloff became ill with pneumonia while shooting this project in the freezing rain. It was his last British feature, begun January 22 1968, and he would recover enough to shoot four Mexican features in May 1968, his final screen work. Barbara Steele is always a treat, and she is especially interesting with green skin and a large, feathery hat (if you can call that a hat).u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eLoosely based off of H. P. Lovecraftu0026#39;s u0026quot;Dreams in the Witch Houseu0026quot;, how does it stack up to the Stuart Gordon version forty years later? Honestly, you cannot even compare them. If there is a connection, it is very limited. There is a witch, there are dreams, but the two films are worlds apart.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eHoward Maxford calls the film u0026quot;dated and somewhat slowu0026quot;, having u0026quot;a better cast than it deservesu0026quot;. How a film that runs only 87 minutes can be slow is a legitimate question. Ivan Butler also feels the film falls short, saying the u0026quot;promise of a combination of Lee, Karloff and Barbara Steele is not fulfilledu0026quot;. These are fair assessments.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eI recommend the film for the cast and the awesome organ track that opens the film. Beyond that, it is hit and miss and you could skip it.”
