Classic Movie Review: 'House of Dracula' Starring Christopher Lee

Horror of Dracula (1958)

Directed by Terence Fisher

Written by Jimmy Sangster

Starring Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Michael Gough

Release Date May 7th 1958

Published April 25th, 2024

If you're going to talk about Dracula and sexuality, you're not going to start with Bela Lugosi. Lugosi's monster may have sexual overtones, Dracula has always been a metaphor for sex, often a symbol of non-consensual sex or used as a fetish figure who represents male sexual dominance. But, Bela Lugosi isn't hot. He's not a bad looking dude, per se, but there are few if any people who look at Bela Lugosi and are overcome with a form of erotomania.

On the other hand, Christopher Lee has that going on. Though he is unconventionally attractive, he has a towering, powerful presence. Lee's eyes appear to be devouring those he's looking at. His every action, every look on his face, is filled with a confident, overbearing sense of his own sexual prowess. In the most crass and basic sense, Lee's Count Dracula is a Dracula who F***s. Lugosi's approach was more asexual, leaning on his desire for power over others to be his driving dramatic force.

1958's Horror of Dracula is a showcase for Christopher Lee's overwhelming presence. It's about those eyes that bore into yours. It's about him looking down at his victims and them looking up at him to subtly and not-so-subtly underline the power fantasy and dynamic at play in Lee's take on the character. Where Max Schreck's Nosferatu is like an incel take on Vampire lore, Lee's Dracula is like a proto-Andrew Tate or one of those pick up artist guys constantly touting their power over women, and sometimes men. Lee's Dracula isn't about murder, he doesn't actually kill the women he covets, he turns them. His intent is keep them and use them against their will for his pleasure, that's his kink.

Making a woman do something she doesn't want to do. That's the driving force of Lee's Dracula and it's bizarre how that parallels with our modern culture of Alpha Males. The Alpha Males often talk about the power they wish to wield over women. It's about bending a woman to that will, getting them to submit to what the man wants in a relationship, it's their fetish, just as it is Dracula's fetish in Horror of Dracula and as portrayed by Christopher Lee. It's not about blood or murder, it's kink. It's a power fantasy and an appealing one for the Alpha Male types as they could never achieve this kind of control over women, but they can live vicariously through Lee's Dracula.

The proof of my thesis about Alpha Males and their kink, their fetish for power, comes in an unlikely form, a woman named Pearl. Every now and then, a podcaster named Pearl goes viral for something she said or something that someone said about her. Pearl is often called a 'Pick Me,' a woman who is eager to submit to a male dominated hierarchy. Pearl has talked many times about how women have too many rights and claims that women are happier when they simply submit to the desires of a man. You might assume that the Alpha Males applaud Pearl and are eager to find a woman just like her, but that's not the case.

Recently, one of these Alpha Male types on TikTok admitted that he's not interested in Pearl. She's too opinionated he opined. The reality is, the reason Pick-Me Pearl isn't married to one of these so-called Alpha Males is because she's too easy, she's already submitted to them. There is no challenge, no power dynamic. If she's giving in from go, they aren't interested. That's not the kink. The kink is convincing a woman who is not a 'Pick-Me' to become a 'Pick-Me.' These Alpha Males can't get excited unless they can feel like they've won, like they have defeated a woman's defenses. It's about power, not sex, not tradition or masculine ideals. It's a power fantasy.

And so is Dracula. Lee's sexuality, his overwhelming machismo is getting people to do things for him that they don't want to do. When Lee's Dracula tricks Mina Harker to coming to him and then takes her blood and keeps her from her family for a full night, he's demonstrated his power over her. Allowing her to return to her husband, Arthur Holmwood (Michael Gough) and be under the protection of Van Helsing (Peter Cushing), allows Dracula the chance to live his fetish again as he's able to demonstrate power over her in circumstances where that should not be possible. It's a power fetish. That's also why Dracula moves from woman to woman so often, he's not looking to settle down, he's looking for his next chance to enact his fetish.

That Christopher Lee and the makers of Horror of Dracula understood this sexual dynamic so clearly in 1958 is demonstrative of the fact that this power fetish is not new. Nor is the shame surrounding this fetish that has Alpha Males talking around the fact that this is a fetish, that this is what gets them off. They talk about it being about a return to traditional masculinity or about it being a public service to women, a way of explaining to women how not to end up without a man. But the cold, hard, brutal truth is quite obvious even when unstated, this is a sexual fetish. It's a fetish for power among men who have a potentially unhealthy desire for such power. And it's unhealthy because they won't talk about it openly, they feel they have to lie about it.

A Pick-Me would happily engage these men in their fetish in a realistic, and seemingly healthier form of role play but the sad truth is that this fetish has been rendered toxic and taken on an element of vengeance. So, it's about power but it's also about punishing those who refuse to yield to that power. Bullying and insulting women on podcasts or on social media has become part of the fetish, part of how these toxic people get off. And, not surprisingly, House of Dracula reflects this notion as well.

Dracula's toxic power fantasies come to an end with his fiery death. Dracula's hubris, his arrogance in placing his coffin inside the Holmwood mansion, is his downfall. It's a symbolic way to view toxic Alpha Males whose likely downfall, ending up alone and bitter or in loveless, unfulfilling relationships, will be their downfall. We are slowly seeing this play out. Influencer Andrew Tate's addiction to his fetish for bullying women into doing things they don't want to do put him behind bars for a time. Recently on social media, Tate went viral for saying that having sex for fun is, in his words, 'gay,' a Tate shorthand for something he doesn't like. That no one can tell if he is kidding is now part of a tortured legacy where Tate is doomed to be mocked forever, a hell of his own creation.

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