cult film freak: DENNIS WATERMAN GROUNDS HAMMER'S 'SCARS OF DRACULA'

Title: SCARS OF DRACULA Pictured: Christopher Matthews, Jenny Hanley, Dennis Waterman Year: 1970 Rating: ***1/2

Hammer decided why mess with a successful formula, and turned their 1970 sequel SCARS OF DRACULA into what's basically a remake of the original, HORROR OF DRACULA, with a womanizing flake in the place of a traveling solicitor, and he even rides a dark-forest coach to get there...

This after beginning with the cheapest of fake-looking bats spitting blood on ashes and thus conveniently reanimating Christopher Lee's iconic and eternal Bram Stoker-created vampire legend...

Christopher Lee in SCARS OF DRACULA with Dennis Waterman

Who, this time around, is even paler and more ghoulish than ever... and violent considering he eventually puts the fangs aside to wield a burning sword (talk about an unfair fight)...

But the recycled plot's eventually diverted since Dracula never leaves his castle; instead, the brother of the dead visitor, played by future SWEENEY star Dennis Waterman (who'd appeared in another Christopher Lee-led Hammer flick, PIRATES OF BLOOD RIVER, as a child actor), is the hero...

Jenny Hanley in SCARS OF DRACULA

Yet is overshadowed by his extremely beautiful blonde girlfriend Jenny Hanley as Dracula's desired "main course" following appetizing brunets in initial "help I'm being held captive" castle-lurking temptress Anouska Hempel, and the token forewarning tavern-owner's daughter/bar-wench Wendy Hamilton...

Ultimately what really works in SCARS deletes that horribly phony bats-on-strings as the dark exteriors and plush Victorian interiors are even more Gothically glorious than ever, also making up for the deliberately unoriginal story that still feels as cozy as an old worn-out shoe.