Dracula AD 1972

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Dracula A.D.1972
Region 1 DVD cover
Directed by	Alan Gibson
Produced by	Josephine Douglas
Written by	Don Houghton
Starring	Christopher Lee Peter Cushing
Distributed by	Hammer Studios
Running time	96 min. (USA)
Language	English
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Dracula A.D. 1972 is a 1972 Hammer Horror film directed by Alan Gibson, and starring Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and Stephanie Beacham. It is the seventh film in Hammer's Dracula series, and the sixth film to star Christopher Lee in the title role. The film is marketed with the tagline "Past, present or future, never count out the Count!"

Contents 1 Plot synopsis 2 Release dates 3 Trivia 4 External links

[edit] Plot synopsis

Count Dracula is destroyed in a confrontation with Abraham Van Helsing in 1872. One hundred years later Johnny Alucard, a teenage descendant of one of Dracula's disciples, performs a black magic ceremony in the abandoned, deconsecrated St Bartholomew's church and restores Dracula to life. Dracula builds up a new horde of disciples from amongst Alucard's swinging teen friends, one of whom is Jessica Van Helsing, grand-daughter of Lorrimer Van Helsing, the current descendant of Dracula's old nemesis and also a vampire hunter. As Lorrimer is drawn into the fight, Dracula plans to take his revenge on the Van Helsing family by turning Jessica into a vampire. But Van Helsing succesfully destroys him with a stake through the heart and Jessica is spared eternal Damnation.

[edit] Release dates

• Sweden 28 August 1972
• UK 27 September 1972
• USA 17 November 1972
• Norway 14 December 1972

[edit] Trivia

• Christopher Neame and Stephanie Beacham would later be reunited in the American soap opera, Dynasty.
• The rock group Stoneground featured in the film were a late replacement for The Faces.
• The opening sequence set in 1872 was not part of the previous film Scars of Dracula but is completely new and not part of any chronology.
• The film has a number of different titles: Dracula '72 (UK working title), Dracula Chases the Mini Girls (UK working title), Dracula Chelsea '72 (UK working title), and Dracula Today.^{[citation needed]} It was also called Dracula '73 when it was released a year later in France.
• The song "Symphony for the Devil", by industrial musician Raymond Watts of PIG, features a sound sample of the Black Mass performed in the film.
• When the film was released in North America, a brief clip was played before the film in which actor Barry Atwater (the vampire Janos Skorzeny in The Nightstalker) rises from a coffin and swears the entire audience in as members of the Count Dracula Society.

[edit] External links

• Dracula AD 1972 at the Internet Movie Database

Hammer Dracula films
Dracula Dracula (1958) | The Brides of Dracula (1960) | Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966) | Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968) | Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970) | Scars of Dracula (1970) | Dracula AD 1972 (1972) | The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973)