Hammer to re-release 1958 Dracula in UK with long-lost footage added | Dracula 1958
Hammer Films’ horror masterpiece Dracula will be re-released in UK cinemas in October, including footage believed to have been lost for more than six decades after it was deemed too terrifying for audiences.
The 1958 film, starring Christopher Lee as Count Dracula and Peter Cushing as Doctor Van Helsing, has been fully restored in 4K.
The restoration reinstates footage previously seen only by audiences in the film’s original Japanese theatrical release in 1958.
The recovered material located in Warner Bros.’ repository has not previously been released in the UK or US and has not made it to home entertainment in any territory.
John Gore, managing director of Hammer Films, described it as “the recovery of a piece of British film history that audiences believed was lost forever”.
Speaking to DeadlineHe explained that censors and distributors cut the footage after audiences fainted during screenings as Lee’s vampire attacked the necks of his victims with blood dripping from his fangs. “It was the teeth that scared them,” he said. “People were screaming, and that was the point.”
The film changed the face of horror cinema with its famous scene where Lee appears at the top of a dark staircase and says, “I am Dracula.”
His performance redefined the on-screen vampire for generations, introducing bloodshot eyes, predatory fangs, and visceral physicality; Cushing, for his part, delivered what is widely considered the definitive classic screen portrayal of Van Helsing, a fearless, intelligent vampire hunter.
“Every time you think about Halloween you see all those teeth, it’s a Hammer and Christopher Lee invention,” Gore said. “It all started with Christopher Lee saying, ‘I want more teeth with this,’ so they came up with something that was a bit of a killer.”
Gore said that Bela Lugosi had no teeth when he played Dracula in Tod Browning’s 1931 film, and that the count in FW Murnau’s 1922 classic Nosferatu was “like a rabbit” and never bit.
The filmmaker wanted to find ways to honor Hammer’s horror legacy after taking control of the company less than three years ago. “Hammer’s work relied on censorship,” he said.
“Getting the
“Warner Brothers has huge storage space near LAX [Los Angeles international airport] Where everything has been there since the 1920s. There are 10 Batmobiles and God knows what else. And they found the director’s cut of the original 1958 Dracula.”
Of the other reintroduced images, “some of them are very famous,” Gore continued. “This is where Christopher Lee gets down on the woman and is about to bite her. It’s so sexual and they had to cut it out because it didn’t seem like it had anything to do with vampires.
“So they had to cut a little bit of the sexual stuff and how it was destroyed in the end. They cut a lot of stuff because they said, ‘This is too terrible’… All the punchlines that were canceled are now back.”
Dracula was Lee and Cushing’s second on-screen pairing, after starring in the 1957 film The Curse of Frankenstein. They became one of the most famous rivalries in cinema history.
The restoration and re-release announcement was made on World Dracula Day, May 26, the same date as Cushing’s birthday; May 27 is Lee’s birthday.
The film will also be available for home entertainment.
