Wonderful "viewing order" suggestions, and makes a lot of sense!
...CREATED WOMEN appears to have been intended as a sequel to EVIL OF... both for the fire damage and the Baron being less ruthless. But he has no problem with his hands in ...DESTROYED. One might take that as meaning a lot of time has gone by and he's recovered... but the other thing is, REVENGE... ends in England, and ...DESTROYED takes place in England (which ...CREATED WOMAN doesn't, so it DOES make more sense 3rd!).
By the way-- HORROR OF... is easy. It's some cheap movie company's version of what "really" happened. I view the Tom Cruise film MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE the same way. No *beep* way that film was about the "real" Jim Phelps!!
I also rather like to think SCARS OF DRACULA takes place before HORROR OF..., as the castle is much older and a total shambles, while the one in HORROR... looks like it was just built. (My theory is, Dracula took it over from whoever originally built and owned it.) If one really wanted to stretch things, SCARS OF... could be seen as a sequel to COUNT DRACULA (1970), which features Van Helsing (Herbert Lom). In HORROR OF..., Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) is already aware of Dracula being a menace before the film starts.
Strangely enough, SCARS OF... was intended to be a "reboot" just like HORROR OF FRANKENSTEIN, and was even supposed to star a different actor as Dracula! but the distributor wouldn't hear of it-- and so, Christopher Lee was brought in at short notice, told that all these people's salaries depended on him being in the film, and he got irritated by the fact that the script had MUCH MORE dialogue than usual, as they tended to use him as a selling point to raise money, but keep his screen-time as little as possible because he got paid by the day!
I never knew this for years... and it makes much more sense to view A.D. 1972 as a sequel to TASTE THE BLOOD OF..., as both take place in England!
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BijouBob8mm
15 years ago
When Hammer did EVIL and knew they would be doing it in conjunction with Universal (therefore being able to incorporate elements from their films), the film was done without consideration to making it fit with CURSE and REVENGE (which could almost be edited together into one epic film.) Part of EVIL recycled the unfilmed "Hypnotist" story done for the aborted Hammer/Screen Gems TALES OF FRANKENSTEIN tv series. (Only the pilot film, "The Face in the Tombstone Mirror" was shot. FRANKENSTEIN CREATED WOMAN also made use of concepts originally developed for the proposed TV series.) CURSE and REVENGE pretty much exist outside the universe of the other Hammer Frankensteins. (Although the clothing and hair styles of MONSTER FROM HELL suggest it takes place during that era, while the clothing of the other films suggest a later period in history.) You could consider EVIL the starting point of a new franchise (ala Daniel Craig's James Bond), as the fiery finale would account for the Baron having to rely on someone else handling surgical chores for him in CREATED WOMAN, or as a stand-alone film that takes place between two franchises (the first two films, then all the rest).
Then there's the studio's Dracula saga. The opening of SCARS shows Dracula being revived on the same alter upon which he perished at the end of TASTE THE BLOOD, yet he's now in his castle in Transylvania. (Much like the mummy getting lost in a New England swamp in Universal's MUMMY'S GHOST, only to rise out of a swamp that's suddenly in cajun country in the follow-up, MUMMY'S CURSE. I guess if you can come back from the dead, geography is a little thing to conquer.) The two modern Hammer Dracula's pretty much ignore all that's come before as they attempted to launch a new franchise. In the pretitle sequence to AD 1972, we're told the original Dr. Van Helsing was killed while defeating Dracula in the year 1872. Yet that Van Helsing is still alive and well during the 1904 setting of LEGEND OF THE 7 GOLDEN VAMPIRES. (Presumably his young adult son in that goes on to become the father of Peter Cushing's modern-day character seen in DRACULA AD 1972 and SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA.) Would have been interesting to see what other Van Helsing family info we might have had, had the studio gone ahead with their next planned Dracula film, KALI: DEVIL-BRIDE OF DRACULA. (If you can find the promotional poster Hammer had made for that unfilmed project, it's a beautiful piece of art.)
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chongajuly
13 years ago
Beautiful Yvonne Monlaur was rescued by Cushing's Van Helsing at the conclusion of THE BRIDES OF DRACULA in 1960. Assuming that she became the BRIDE OF VAN HELSING, it's nice that he "got the girl" in the end, in the same way as James Bond. She was one of Hammer's great beauties.
"I take pleasure in great beauty" - James Bond
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