Hammer Films is set to rerelease its 1958 horror classic Dracula in UK cinemas this October, featuring restored footage that was cut by censors over six decades ago for being too gruesome. The film, starring Christopher Lee as Count Dracula and Peter Cushing as Doctor Van Helsing, has been fully restored in 4K, including material previously seen only by audiences at its original Japanese theatrical release.
The recovered footage, discovered in a Warner Bros warehouse, has never been released in the UK or US, nor appeared on home entertainment anywhere. John Gore, chief executive of Hammer Films, described it as 'the recovery of a piece of British film history that audiences believed had been lost for ever'. He told Deadline that censors cut the footage after audiences fainted during screenings when Lee's vampire lunged at victims' necks with blood-dripping fangs.
Gore noted that the film redefined on-screen vampires, with Lee's performance introducing bloodshot eyes, predatory fangs, and visceral physicality. 'Think of every Halloween and you see all those fangs – that’s a Hammer and Christopher Lee invention,' he said. He contrasted this with Bela Lugosi's fangless Dracula in 1931 and the 'rabbit-like' Count in Nosferatu.
The restored footage includes a scene where Dracula descends on a woman, described by Gore as 'so sexual' that censors trimmed it. Other cuts involved the vampire's destruction at the end. 'All the crucial points that were axed are now back in,' Gore said. The announcement was made on World Dracula Day, 26 May, coinciding with Peter Cushing's birthday; Christopher Lee's birthday was the following day.
