Bettmann/Bettmann/Getty ImagesSince movie theaters began reopening in the wake of the 2020 shutdowns, something unexpected has been happening at arthouses across America. Repertory screenings — older films, basically, often hand-selected and shown on celluloid prints — have become major draws, performing as well (or better than) new-release movies at many theaters. Studios have started taking notice as well: Earlier this month, Warner Bros.’ newly formed Clockwork sub-label announced that Ken Russell’s infamous 1971 film The Devils would be returning to theaters, prompting major buzz around the film and the studio. Now, the relaunched Hammer Films — a company whose heyday was back in the 1960s and ‘70s — is getting in on the trend. This week, the studio announced that it is preparing a re-release of its original 1958 Dracula, a.k.a Horror of Dracula, for a Halloween theatrical release. Like The Devils, Dracula returns to theaters in its original uncut form: After newspaper reports claimed that moviegoers were fainting during the film’s more, let’s say, penetrative bloodsucking scenes, British censors insisted that Hammer cut three minutes from the movie to avoid an X rating. Don’t be confused...Horror of Dracula and Dracula are the same movie. | LMPC/LMPC/Getty Images“Hammer’s business was based on the censor. 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,” current Hammer Films owner John Gore tells Deadline. “It was the fangs that scared them,” he adds. “People were screaming, which was the point.”According to Gore, the key deleted scene is “a bit that’s so famous...Christopher Lee descends on the woman and is about to bite her...they had to trim that because it just looked like it was nothing to do with vampires,” he says. The film’s ending was also significantly edited, and Gore says that the deleted footage — previously seen only in poor-quality footage sourced from Japanese prints — has been “fully restored” for the new theatrical release. Beyond its history of censorship, Dracula is significant for a few reasons. It was Christopher Lee’s first film as Count Dracula, a role that would come to define his career: Between 1958 and 1976, Lee played the seductive, but deadly Count a total of 10 times. It also had a lasting effect on vampire mythology in general, introducing blood-red eyes and long canine fangs — the result of a collaboration between Lee and makeup artist Philip Leakey — to the undead makeup kit. (It was also the first full-color vampire film, which greatly enhanced its visceral impact.) A Japanese post for what was, up to this point, the only uncut version of the movie. | LMPC/LMPC/Getty ImagesInterestingly, Warner Bros. is part of this story as well. Gore says that the materials for the new uncut 4K were discovered in the same vaults that have housed the The Devils all these years: “So Warner Brothers, they have this massive, massive storage near LAX where everything from the 1920s onwards is there. I mean, there’s like 10 Batmobiles and God knows what. And they found the director’s cut of the original 1958 Dracula,” he says. Hammer Films has already released a teaser trailer featuring footage from its restoration of the film; the colors are appropriately garish for this pulp classic, and the shadows are as dark as you’d hope from an atmospheric Gothic horror movie like this one. You can see that footage for yourself below. The 4K restoration of Dracula (a.k.a. Horror of Dracula) sinks its teeth into theaters in October.