Flipthe Frog finds himself caught in a storm. He spots a house, but instead of receiving the shelter he had wished for, he finds that the house contains skeletons who wish to make him a skeleton, too.

Print Courtesy of the National Film and Sound Archive

Horror of Dracula (released as simply Dracula in the UK) is the first of Hammer’s legendary series of Dracula flicks. It introduced the Dracula that most people immediately imagine, more so than the Dracula of the original novel: Christopher Lee mooning about as the creepy count who burns up in the sun, devoid of the magic and shape shifting abilities as described in the original Bram Stoker novel.

The basic story is familiar to most folks, although it plays out somewhat differently to the original novel. Jonathan Harker (John Van Eyssen) heads to the castle of the legendary Count Dracula (Lee) with the intent of killing him. When he fails to return, Dr. Abraham Van Helsing (Cushing) follows, making himself, Harker’s wife Lucy (Marsh), her brother Arthur (Gough) and his wife Mina (Stribling) targets of the sinister vampire.

Directed by Hammer’s legendary Terrence Fisher (also known for Hammer’s Frankenstein, Mummy, Phantom of the Opera and the brilliantly dark Hound of the Baskervilles), Horror of Dracula has a mood about it that manages to simultaneously be both camp and brooding. The film is beautifully shot and has a real visual flair about it. The icing on the cake is Cushing and Lee’s magnificent chemistry, which is at its finest in this film.