Scars of Dracula (1970)

"Scars of Dracula" starts with a big ass bat flying into Dracula's castle and pulling a Gene Simmons by puking blood all over the counts ashes and of course, bringing him back to life. Meanwhile, in a nearby village a young playboy type is accused of rape when the girl he was with accuses him of leaving her for another girl. Fleeing the house and the girls father, the fellow makes a stop at a birthday party for a rather buxom English chick with whom both he and his brother, who is also at the party, are in love with. Got it? Beating a hasty retreat when the cops show up, the dude retreats into the countryside and eventually shacks up in Dracula's castle. Now missing, it's up to his brother and his love interest to go to the castle and rescue him. Scars was blasted for it's (at the time) rather excessive bloodletting and various sexual innuendos. The Hammer flicks always had a bit of class to them, and I guess some felt this was just a rather cheap way to shock audiences. The other major problem most had was with the shabby f/x which borders from decent to, well, pretty crappy. Though the crappy part mostly deals with those big phony bats they had flying all over the place. All this aside though, you still get Chris Lee who plays the baddest Dracula out of anyone. I loved the idea of Dracula having a hidden room, accessible only by a window for his sleeping quarters, and the shot of Lee climbing the wall of his castle was pretty cool. The atmosphere and settings were dead on, though some of the backdrops of the castle looked fairly phony. To summarize, I guess this would be sort of a hit and miss movie, though one that I feel is still enjoyable to watch. You could do worse.