Hammer Films' classic 1958 horror film Dracula, starring Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, is set for a UK rerelease in October with newly restored footage that was previously cut by censors for being too gruesome. The film has been fully restored in 4K, including material that had been believed lost for over six decades.
The recovered footage, discovered in a Warner Bros warehouse, was originally shown only to Japanese audiences in 1958 and has never been released in the UK or US, nor on home entertainment anywhere. Hammer Films CEO John Gore described it as 'the recovery of a piece of British film history that audiences believed had been lost for ever'.
According to Gore, censors and distributors cut the footage after audiences fainted during screenings when Lee's vampire lunged at victims' necks with blood-dripping fangs. 'It was the fangs that scared them,' Gore told Deadline. 'People were screaming, which was the point.'
The restored scenes include a famously sexual moment where Dracula descends on a woman about to bite her, which was trimmed for its erotic undertones. Gore noted that the censors also cut parts of the vampire's destruction, deeming them too gruesome. 'All the crucial points that were axed are now back in,' he said.
The film is credited with redefining on-screen vampires, introducing bloodshot eyes, predatory fangs, and visceral physicality. Gore highlighted that Bela Lugosi's 1931 Dracula had no fangs, and Nosferatu's count 'was like a rabbit'. Lee's performance, alongside Cushing's definitive Van Helsing, cemented their status as cinema's most celebrated rivalry.
