Brides of Dracula [VHS]
When Christopher Lee declined to reprise his role as Count Dracula in a sequel to the enormously popularThe Horror of Dracula, Hammer went another direction and instead followed the investigations of vampire hunter Van Helsing (Peter Cushing). He doesn't actually appear until the second act, after French schoolteacher Marianne (Yvonne Monlaur, a big eyed, thick-lipped, curvy young beauty in the Bardot mold) inadvertently releases Baron Meinster (David Peel), a young disciple of Dracula, from his castle prison in a cursed mountain village. This handsome vampire bites his way through a bevy of glamorous beauties in low-cut blouses and frilly nightgowns as he woos his sexy savior, while Van Helsing relentlessly tracks him back to Marianne. Director Terence Fisher, working from a rather convoluted (and at times incomprehensible) script, makes his mark  through a series of marvelous set pieces. In one of the most memorable, a twisted old woman plays midwife to a reborn undead, coaxing her out of the ground as hands push through the earth. In one harrowing moment Van Helsing sears his neck with a branding iron and treats it with holy water after being bitten. Cushing is his usual dashing self, more than making up for the handsome but hardly commanding Peel, and you might recognize Marita Hunt, who plays the withered Baroness, as Miss Haversham from David Lean's classicGreat Expectations.--Sean Axmaker