Customer Ratings & Reviews

You know what you're getting if you're looking at this. I wish every movie opened with a Peter Cushing/Christopher Lee fistfight atop a careening runaway horse-drawn carriage. Alas... the rest of the movie can't live up that opening, but it's solid, campy fun. Image and sound are solid.

Present day occultists practice devil worship and guess what happens! Peter Cushing puts in a good performance. More Sherlock Holmes than Van Helsing. Christopher as usual.

The movie was just as I remembered when I watched as a kid at the movies. Scared me then and still does today!

Another awesome dracula movie by the legendary christopher lee. Get it while still in circulation.

Great Christopher Lee movie. Highly recommended. A great movie.

Just love the old classic Dracula movies had to buy for my collection

The was Christopher Lee's last Dracula movie, he hated it.

A surprisingly good modern day Dracula tale that is as much Fu Manchu as the Count, "Satanic Rites" was once going to be entitled "Dracula Is Dead and Living in London" (talk about a long marquee title). The film has more to its plot than most in that Dracula has taken on the identity of a business man and is secretly creating a plague that will wipe out all life on Earth. Why? Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) theories that Dracula is trying to indirectly destroy himself (which would explain why he is behaving like Fu Manchu). Although the film holds up pretty well, it does feel like there's a significant portion of the film missing like it was trimmed down to make it work well as a double feature. For example, the build up to the identity of the businessman behind the whole plot isn't there as it is just plopped down right in front of us at the same time as Van Helsing learns the truth. The film has shown up in various public domain versions over the years (Warner had let the copyright lapse) almost all of them crummy looking. While still soft looking, the Warner Archive edition provides an improvement with better depth, detail and strong colors. Sadly, there aren't any special features. It would have been terrific to hear Jonathan Rigby, for example, provide us some detail on the production of the film. Alan Gibson's direction here is serviceable improving on the more uneven (but better looking "Dracula AD 1972"). We do, however, get the original trailer. A solid final outing from Hammer (which has been unfairly dismissed over the years), "Rites" seems to have a big chunk of the film missing as it moves from horror to a combination of Fu Manchu or Bond styled thriller. Recommended.