Dracula (1958)
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Where to Watch
Free
Source: JustWatch
Physical Media
For decades, one Hammer legend refused to die: that a more explicit cut of the film that reinvented horror had played overseas in 1958, too sexual and too gory for British censors, and then vanished.
In 2011, a Hammer obsessive living in Tokyo tracked down what remained of it in a film archive. The first five reels had burned in a fire years earlier. Only the last four survived, and they held the missing pieces.
DRACULA (1958), Terence Fisher's genre-defining film with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, known in America as HORROR OF DRACULA, had finally given up its secrets.
The recovered scenes are the ones the censors could not stomach: Mina visibly, dangerously enjoying her own seduction, and the Count clawing the rotting flesh from his own face as sunlight destroys him. When they were reinstated on Blu-ray in 2013, though, the salvaged footage looked faded and scarred, a rough patch stitched into a pristine film.
However - and this is the big news - pristine reels containing the long-lost "Japanese cut" footage were recently discovered inside a Warner Bros. storage facility.
This Halloween, Hammer's new owners are returning DRACULA to cinemas and 4K in a fresh restoration that finally renders those scenes in the same clean quality as the rest of the film. For the first time, the uncut version simply looks whole.
About the Film
Who will his bride be tonight?
- Directed By
- Terence Fisher
- Runtime
- 82 minutes
- Released
- April 21, 1958
- US Theatrical
- May 8, 1958
- Certification
- 12
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Starring
- Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Michael Gough, Melissa Stribling, Carol Marsh
More Credits
- Genres
- Horror
- Language
- English
- Origin
- GB
- Studios
- Hammer Film Productions
- Collection
- Dracula (Hammer) Collection
- Written By
- Bram Stoker, Jimmy Sangster
- Produced By
- Michael Carreras, Anthony Hinds
- Cinematography
- Jack Asher
- Music
- James Bernard
- Also Starring
- Olga Dickie, John Van Eyssen, Valerie Gaunt, Janina Faye, Barbara Archer
- Budget
- $104,880
- Box Office
- $3,500,000
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Where to see it:
2013 – Lionsgate Blu-ray (Region B)
Still the current disc, and still worth owning. It carries both the 2007 BFI restoration and the 2012 reinstated-footage cut, plus a deep bench of extras, including all four surviving Japanese reels unrestored, so you can watch the raw source of the recovered scenes. The reinstated footage here is the faded version the new restoration improves on.
October 2026 – Hammer / Warner Bros. 4K restoration
The reason we’re talking about this. A UK theatrical run through Icon, then 4K UHD home video, timed for Halloween, with full specs still to be announced. The one to wait for if picture quality on the censored scenes is what you care about.
https://www.justwatch.com/ca/movie/dracula-1958
Tout le monde n’a pas un bluray 4k,comment fait on pour le voir en bluray normal ?
Pierre Guagnini en changeant de lecteur … le 4k Panasonic UB150 est tres performant et abordable il monte aussi les bluray en 4k
Albert Ribeiro dans les lecteurs 4k,peuvent t’il lire le film bluray classique ?
Pierre Guagnini oui et mes cds dvd aussi le lecteur 4k lit TOUS les disques existants
Albert Ribeiro merci beaucoup
he did that role 10 times, such an amazing man
GREAT NEWS I am for sure purchasing the new bluray restored version this October!!! 🤪
Go to Bluray.com and look up Horror of Dracula.
You can put your email in so they can tell you when it will be available 😉
I saw it when it came out, and remember the staking of Lucy as incredibly violent and protracted, with geysers of blood, as well as the slow dissolution of Dracula. I have always wondered if I actually saw those things, or if my 11-year-old brain manufactured them. But I think I really did see them.
One of my faves, id love to see it.💞
As long as we get it here in America.
There are similar stories to “The Vampire Lovers” (1970) and Lust For The Vampire (1971), Hammer had said the erotic Pitt/O’Mara scene was destroyed, and that the last, more gory and stark Stensgaard hovering over the film’s final victim was excised because Yutte was not comfortable with it. But you have to wonder….
Lisa Wilkie x
I did not think that the reinstated scenes/bits looked bad at all. I would not have noticed them if I did not knew.
Hope the new version will be out on blu.
While I do want to see this, how many times to I need to buy this movie……lol
Let us all hope it will not be a OVERPRICED $200.00 disc being released. If so, I’ll pass!!!
I have a blu ray version, I can fully understand why the BBFC would want it cut in 1958.
Wow! I can’t wait to see it
I think this is my all time favorite movie. I saw it the first time hiding behind my dad’s chair – I was supposed to be in bed. I was 6. Horror fan ever since!