We here at Den of Geek respect every bloodsucker, whether it’s Orlok, Lestat, Count von Count, or Selene (X-Men or Underworld variety; we’re not picky). Yet, we have to admit that Count Dracula is the greatest vampire of them all. But who is the greatest Dracula? That’s a trickier question. The obvious answer is Bela Lugosi from the Universal Classics, and cinephiles may praise Gary Oldman from Francis Ford Coppola‘s now-reclaimed movie. Contrarians and hipsters might cite Frank Langella’s sensuous take in 1979 or Leslie Nielsen’s buffoon from Mel Brooks‘s Dracula: Dead and Loving It, but few can come to consensus.That may be about to change, as one of the most beloved cinematic Draculas gets an upgrade. Warner Bros. is in the process of restoring the 1958 Hammer film Horror of Dracula, starring Christopher Lee as a particularly satanic version of the vampire. “We managed to get the uncut original Christopher Lee Dracula. So we’ve just been remastering that now,” Hammer head John Gore told Deadline. The new version will restore three minutes that were cut from the film to appease censors.cnx.cmd.push(function() {cnx({playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530",}).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796");});“Hammer’s business was based on the censor,” Gore explained. “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.”Directed by Terence Fischer and just titled Dracula in its native U.K., Horror of Dracula retold the classic Bram Stoker story through a lurid, Technicolor lens. Pit against Peter Cushing’s Van Helsing, Lee played Dracula as at once regal and monsterous, believable as both a member of the aristocracy and as a creature of the night. Moreover, Hammer emphasized the sexuality of the original story, something only implied in the previous Universal version. The loose necklines on the costumes worn by Melissa Stribling and Carol Marsh weren’t there just to tempt Dracula with their jugular veins.That sexuality was a key part of the problem, said Gore. One of the excised bits includes a scene “where Christopher Lee descends on the woman and is about to bite her. It’s so sexual and they had to trim that because it just looked like it was nothing to do with vampires,” he teased. “And now that’s back in. All the crucial points that were axed are now back in.”Alluring as all the sex and violence may be, Gore’s most excited about restoring a key plot point, related to the death of the titular vampire. “They had to trim a bit of the sexual stuff and then how he’s destroyed at the end. They cut quite a lot out because they went, ‘It’s too gruesome,'” said Gore. But when a director’s cut of the film was found in a Warner Brothers storage facility, Gore was given the ability to show the world “the bits they weren’t seeing, which is mostly to do with how Dracula dies at the end.”With his end fully revealed, and both his terror and allure completely realized, the debate may be at an end. Horror of Dracula may finally establish Christopher Lee as the scariest Dracula we’ve ever seen.The post Hammer Dracula Restoration Cut Can Establish Christopher Lee As the Scariest Vampire appeared first on Den of Geek.