Once Dracula is up and about, the script can't find much for him to do, but there are spirited performances from Shelley, as an uptight bourgeois who becomes a sensual vampire hoyden, and Kier, as a gun-toting monk who fills in for Van Helsing.

The thrills do not arise sufficiently smooth out of atmosphere.

Full of the sensual mysteriousness which Hammer used to achieve so effortlessly during their long occupation of Bray Studios.

Dracula doesn’t actually speak here, and is off-screen for long stretches, but fortunately there are some big compensations to divert attention.