Classic horror film Dracula is having its bite re-instated after the discovery of presumed missing footage that caused people to faint during early screenings.
The 1958 Hammer movie, directed by Terence Fisher and starring Christopher Lee, had up to three minutes worth of gory moments removed from the UK and US release after shocking viewers in Japan.
But after being discovered in a Warner Bros warehouse, the scenes have been added to a 4K restoration, which will be released later this year. It will be the first time audiences outside of Japan will have ever seen the full version.
John Gore, the chief executive of Hammer Films, described it as “a piece of British film history that audiences believed had been lost for ever”, adding: “They cut quite a lot out because they went, ‘It’s too gruesome.’ And now that’s back in. All the crucial points that were axed are now back in.”
One of the scenes in question shows the fangs of Count Dracula (Lee) dripping with blood after he feasts on his victim’s neck.
Bram Stoker’s literary figure Dracula had been seen on screens before, in FW Murnau’s 1922 Nosferatu and Tod Browning’s 1931 Dracula – but this version was the first to show the vampire with fangs and also marked the first interpretation since the advent of colour in cinema, meaning the sight of blood might have been too much for some.
“It all started when Christopher Lee said, ‘I want more teeth with this,’ so they came up with something that had some bite,” Gore told Deadline. “People were screaming, which was the point.”
He continued: “Hammer’s business was based on the censor. Getting that X-rated certificate was crucial to marketing, but they could only go so far because the censors didn’t like what they saw – all that blood.”
More footage that’s been reinstated includes a scene in which Lee’s Dracula descends upon the woman he’s about to bite, which was trimmed for being too sexual, and also moments from Dracula’s gory death scene.
The remastered version of Dracula will be released in October, and Gore said his team are now exploring the Hammer catalogue to see which other films can be restored.
Dracula was a blockbuster success for Hammer Films, making £2.6m globally from a budget of just £81,412.
