On a related note, I have not yet finished re-screening all of the Hammer DRACULA films. However, even if I never get around to SCARS OF DRACULA, I tend to believe that the combative mode in the key films of the series-- notably HORROR OF DRACULA and BRIDES OF DRACULA-- that all films within the series will be subsumed by the combative mode, even those that I've judged to be individually subcombative, like TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACULA.In recent months, I've concluded a re-screening of all of the Hammer DRACULA films, and have reviewed all of them on my film-blog except for the last, sometimes known as THE SEVEN BROTHERS MEET DRACULA. The last film is an anomalous one in that the narrative emphasis is not on the vampire lord, but on "the seven brothers," a group of kung-fu fighters who become allied to Van Helsing in his quest to destroy the vampire count. Thus, what I write about the series concerns only the eight films preceding SEVEN BROTHERS-- HORROR OF DRACULA, BRIDES OF DRACULA (which doesn't actually have Dracula in it, though Van Helsing's character carries over from the first film), DRACULA PRINCE OF DARKNESS, DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE, TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACULA, SCARS OF DRACULA, DRACULA 1972 A.D., and THE SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA.
Of these eight films, the first, second, seventh and eighth are combative, while the other four are not. As I said, BRIDES does not involve Dracula, but it features a bracing climax in which Peter Cushing's Van Helsing defeats the centric monster, one Baron Meinster. This was also the only film of these eight that did not include actor Christopher Lee as Van Helsing's opponent. It's arguable that Van Helsing's destruction of Meinster-- trapping the vampire in the shadow of a cross, created by windmill-blades-- is the most strikingly original of the four combative films.
Now that I've made these observations re: the combative mode in the series, I hypothesize that the Hammer producers found it hard to conceive of any mortals opposing their forceful fiend unless the opponent was (1) Van Helsing himself, (2) forces allied to Van Helsing (the "seven brothers"), or (3) a strong Van Helsing analogue. Such an analogue appears in 1963's KISS OF THE VAMPIRE, in which a Professor Zimmer unleashes a magical curse-- in the form of a flock of bats-- upon a clutch of evil vampires.
As I mentioned in the review, this climax was one that Peter Cushing didn't want to perform for BRIDES OF DRACULA, so that the curse-work was recycled into another movie. KISS OF THE VAMPIRE was not in the Dracula/Van Helsing series, yet strangely, it's the only Hammer film outside the series that had a combative conclusion, in contrast to four other non-series entries: THE VAMPIRE LOVERS, VAMPIRE CIRCUS, LUST FOR A VAMPIRE, and TWINS OF EVIL.
As my reading of the Dracula series stands, it's evenly divided between combative and sub-combative, which would make it difficult to judge the series as a whole according to my original standard, the 51 percent rule. Of course, the first part of TRANSITIVE MONSTERS was written after I formulated a more exacting formulation for judging the combative mode and related matters, the active share/passive share theory. By this formulation, the actual number of combative stories within a mythos is not the final determinant, which gives me an "out" for any series that's evenly divided between combative and subcombative entries.
Generally speaking, given a 50-50 situation, t have tended to favor the combative over the subcombative. The "King Kong" series of Merian C. Cooper comprises just two interrelated films, the 1933 KING KONG and its same-year sequel SON OF KONG, but the first film's combative characteristics have proven more culturally significant than the sequel's subcombative theme of self-sacrifice.
However, in contrast to my prediction in Part One, I've determined that the eight-film in the Dracula-focused series-- even though it includes one vampire who is a "Dracula wannabe"-- is dominantly subcombative.
To show this, I'll contrast the Dracula series to that of Freddy Krueger. I expounded upon the latter series in Part One, showing that although the first two films in the series were subcombative, the next four all stressed the idea that average teenagers could become aware of Freddy's dream-based depredations and could, with some mental training, turn themselves into "dream warriors." Though Freddy Krueger is always the star of the show, ordinary humans can "ramp up" their abilities to fight him on his own terms.
There's no such "ramping up" in any of the Hammer Draculas that don't include Van Helsing; the implication is always that ordinary humans can only muddle through and win by last-minute flashes of inspiration.
In DRACULA PRINCE OF DARKNESS the vampire is only defeated when one of his enemies shoots holes in the ice Dracula just happens to be standing on.
In DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE, the vampire's male opponent Paul manages to push Dracula off the edge of a cliff, but the only reason this stops the vampire is because he just happens to get impaled on a cross that another character tossed off the cliff earlier.
In TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACULA, the only reason Dracula's opponents survive is because they just happen to be in a church during his attack and have access to a cross.
And in SCARS OF DRACULA, the count is defeated not by his human opponents, but by the heavens themselves, when lightning strikes the metal rod Dracula happens to be holding.
The attitude of the Hammer producers toward the potential of any character save Van Helsing contrasts strongly with that of Bram Stoker, where ordinary men like Jonathan Harker and Quincy Morris do "ramp up" to slay a monster far more powerful than they are.
I'm not trying to claim that dumb luck never plays a role in the victories of more megadynamic characters. But when a series shows no interest in giving its villain/monster a range of worthy opponents, then it suggests that they are more interested in evoking the expression of "fear" than of "courage," to draw upon the opposed affects mentioned in this essay.
And if the series is more invested in fear than in courage, this, more than its pure percentage of combative episodes, aligns it with the subcombative mode.
ADDENDA 3-3-2018: I've completed a review of THE SEVEN BROTHERS MEET DRACULA, a.k.a. THE LEGEND OF THE SEVEN GOLDEN VAMPIRES. I stated above that I didn't consider this to be part of the normative "Dracula series" because the 1974 film placed its narrative emphasis upon the "seven brothers" rather than Dracula. I've amended this opinion on the movie's focal presences to one in which Peter Cushing's Van Helsing and David Chiang's "Hsi Ching" are the principal heroes, given that Ching's six brothers and one sister are subordinate, merely functional characters. Further, I now realize that there's an even better reason to exile LEGEND from the Dracula canon: because the film's continuity doesn't jibe with that of the normative series. Thus, though I realize that a lot of film-serials have at best modest continuity-- the Godzilla serials, for example-- this kung-fu/horror melange is better understood as an entity separate from the rest of the Hammer Draculas. Yet, even if I did deem LEGEND as part of the Hammer "Drac Pack," it's presence would not undermine my argument that the series as a whole is dominantly subcombative.
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